LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Senate voted 19-14 Thursday to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of a bill that will ban most abortions after 20 weeks. The bill, which has an emergency clause, takes effect immediately.

The Arkansas Senate voted Thursday to override a veto of a near-ban of abortions starting in the 20th week of pregnancy and backed a separate measure that would outlaw the procedures in most cases beginning in the 12th week.

Benton County edged closer to resolving the county’s rural ambulance service issue, asking County Judge Bob Clinard to work the current service providers for this year and next year while the Quorum Court ponders a tax or fee to pay for the service beyond that time.

The enthusiasm of walleye anglers knows no limits, but anglers need to know about walleye length limits and daily limits before casting a line. At Beaver, Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Norfork and Greers Ferry lakes, walleye must be 18 inches or longer to keep. The daily limit is four walleye.

It’s less than a month until spring break unleashes students from school for a week of freedom, and some parents may be wondering just how to corral the excess energy brought on by warm weather and spare time.

Everything went right for Keifer Holt on senior night at Rogers High last week.
With the Mounties fighting for the last Class 7A State Tournament spot from the 7A/6A-Conference, Holt played the best game of his career.

A hometown crowd and the excitement surrounding the first Class 7A State Tournament game of the day were not nearly enough to lift the Fayetteville girls basketball team past a young and talented bunch from North Little Rock on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders unveiled a full-length statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks in the Capitol on Wednesday, paying tribute to a figure whose name became synonymous with courage in the face of injustice.

The Stone Temple Pilots have fired singer Scott Weiland. In a one-sentence news release Wednesday, publicist Kymm Britton said: “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” No other information was provided, and Weiland could not immediately be reached for comment. The band’s 1992 debut Core, has sold more than 8 million copies in the United States. Its hits include “Vasoline,” “Interstate Love Song” and “Plush,” which won a Grammy in 1993 for best hard-rock performance with vocal. Weiland also was in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and other musicians. The 45-year-old has dealt with drug addiction, run-ins with the law and two failed marriages. He released his memoir, Not Dead &amp; Not for Sale, in 2011.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I’ll be honest, I’ll be direct, I’ll expect the same from you. I’ll never ask anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do.” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, addressing several hundred civilian Defense Department workers and members of the military Article,this page Officials: Killer had 3 guns, wore armor SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The suspect in the killings of two California police detectives was wearing body armor and had three guns when he died in a shootout with other officers, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “To love the church means also to have the courage to take difficult, painful decisions, always keeping the good of the church in mind, not oneself.” Pope Benedict XVI Article, this page Fire in 6-story India market fatal to 19 KOLKATA, India — A fire broke out at an illegal sixstory plastics market in the Indian city of Kolkata early Wednesday, killing at least 19 people, police said.

Pope Benedict XVI bid an emotional farewell Wednesday to his flock on the eve of his retirement, recalling in his final speech as pontiff moments of “joy and light” during his papacy but also times of difficulty when “it seemed like the Lord was sleeping.” An estimated 150,000 people flooded St. Peter’s Square for Benedict’s last general audience, eager to show their support and bear witness to the final hours of a papacy that will go down in history as the first one in 600 years to end in resignation rather than death.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 28, 1913 PARAGOULD — Secretary C. W. Highfill yesterday received a communication from W. H. Bennett, a farmer residing near Clinton, Iowa, asking for information about Arkansas frogs. Mr. Bennett says he is starting a frog farm and wants to secure some northeast Arkansas frogs to cross with the Iowa products. Secretary Highfill replied that this section of Arkansas is short on frogs since the drainage system has been practically completed and that the sections that were formerly the breeding places for the bullfrog now are fertile fields producing 100 bushels of corn and a bale of cotton to the acre.

Gather ‘round kids. Your mother and I want to have a serious talk about the bills. Would somebody call Little Johnny from the backyard? And where’s Beth? We need everybody in the living room! That includes you, Aunt Clara. Everybody in the house! Family meeting!

John Stuart Mill’s classic essay “On Liberty” gives reasons why some people should not be taking over other people’s decisions about their own lives. But Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard has given reasons to the contrary. He cites research showing “that people make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes can prove extremely damaging.” Professor Sunstein is undoubtedly correct that “people make a lot of mistakes.” Most of us can look back over our own lives and see many mistakes, including some that were very damaging.

The gun lobby and its acolytes in Annapolis are mounting an allout assault to subvert Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s bill to establish what would be among the nation’s most stringent gun-licensing regimens. They are taking special aim at the core of the governor’s program: a requirement that gun buyers submit not only to background checks, as they already do, but also to digital fingerprinting by the state police.

If this column appeared under the headline, “Massive defeat for the anti-science forces,” you would naturally assume I’m talking about some kind of setback for conservative Republicans, right? And you would be completely wrong.

As families, businesses, institutions and governments scale back and redefine how they invest, hire, lend, fund and spend resources, a new era of frugality is being ushered into the American psyche that is long overdue.

Please, focus on debt You’ve gotta love President Barack Obama. His lobbying the American people to provide all preschoolers a high-quality education and assist the unemployed to become well-trained for possible new high-tech jobs are just two examples of why this populist president has become so popular. He knows how to choose heart-pulling topics, articulate the dire needs, and vilify all who don’t enthusiastically join him in these efforts.

FOOTBALL Four Tide players dismissed Four players for two-time defending national champion Alabama have been dismissed from school following their arrests after two robberies on campus. University spokeswoman Deborah Lane said Wednesday that linebackers D.J. Pettway and Tyler Hayes, safety Eddie Williams and H-back Brent Calloway are no longer enrolled after a judicial review. Crimson Tide Coach Nick Saban had earlier said the players “are no longer associated with the football program. Their actions do not reflect the spirit and character that we want our organization to reflect,” Saban said. “It’s obviously very disappointing and unacceptable what happened. I also think I’m really proud over the last five years that our team has done a very good job with their personal responsibility and how they’ve represented the university. Some people learn by words, some people learn by consequences, some people can’t learn.” Pettway, Williams and Hayes are charged with two counts of second-degree robbery. Williams and

HOT SPOTS LAKE CATHERINE Large numbers of trout are in the tailrace and feeding on shad and insect hatches. Bank fishermen are catching the most fish but have been hampered by fast water close to the dam. Brightly Lake colored Power Bait, corn, redworms and wax worms Charles combined with a marshmallow floater are Black River St. Francis working best. Fly fishermen are catching River trout on Woolly Buggers, micro-jigs, San Juan worms, and egg patterns. Spin fishermen are having success using Super NORTHEAST &amp; Dupers in silver or gold, 1/16 ounce jigs in gray EAST-CENTRAL or white, and Rooster Tails in brown or white. LAKE CONWAY Bream fishing is fair using worms and crickets fished close to brush piles. Crappie Horseshoe fishing slowed a little, but they are still biting well Lake on minnows and jigs fished around stumps 3-4 feet Arc deep. Bass are biting well on spinnerbaits fished 3-4 feet deep. Catfishing is fair.

Freshman Mitchell Smith completed a three-point play with 20.8 seconds remaining as Van Buren survived a late rally by Conway to earn a 52-49 victory in the opening round of the Class 7A boys state tournament.

Now, you never know how folks are going to react when you start writing a column. I mean, it has been a while since I did this sort of thing, and when I did, I had the safety net of the rolling three-ring circus and general freak show that is college athletics to fall back on. And before you rise up in protest, I’ve got two names for you: Manti Te’o and Honey Badger. Case rested.

Joel Walsh has been seriously misinformed in his article in Sunday, Feb. 17, edition. In his article on honeysuckle and privet he states the honeysuckle berries are like junk food for birds and small mammals. Well, as far as them wanting the berries, they sure do. As far as being junk food, I think not.

A federal judge heard conflicting testimony Wednesday from two former BP executives about the effect of cost-cutting measures on the company’s drilling operations before the 2010 oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mississippi River shippers have returned to hauling full loads after several storms and aggressive rock-clearing deepened the waterway, eliminating worries about barge traffic shutting down, the river’s stewards and barge operators said Wednesday.

Italy’s muddled election results worried investors, raising unsettling questions about the availability of the financial safety net that has kept Europe from catastrophe for the past six months, bank officials and economists say.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I’d say we’ve gotten through the toughest period we’re going to see in the low-water period.” Mike Petersen, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman about a stretch of the Mississippi River near St. Louis Article, 1D Loss grows at Penney as sales skid NEW YORK — J.C. Penney reported a loss and plunging sales for its fiscal fourth quarter as the department store chain’s plan to scale back most coupons and sales events has continued to turn off shoppers.

Deltic’s net income up to $2.4 million Deltic Timber Corp. posted a net income of $2.4 million for its fourth quarter, reversing a $208,000 loss in the same quarter a year ago, the company announced Wednesday.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I distinctively remember those Sunday evening returns to my hometown of Fayetteville after a weekend of travel to visit grandparents and other relatives living in the southern portion of the state.

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: Does God ever tell us to do something, or to believe something, that contradicts the Bible? A friend of mine says the Bible is out of date and we need to let the Spirit guide us in new directions, but I’m not so sure about that. — S.Y. DEAR S.Y.: You’re right to be skeptical of your friend’s views — because God never tells us to do anything that He has clearly forbidden in His Word, the Bible. God does not change, and neither does His Word.

Happy birthday. The giving extends throughout the year as you continually deliver, even when you have not been asked, what you know will be needed, wanted and perhaps appreciated. It is your deepest joy to give in this way. Unusual bonds are forged in March and June.

DEAR CAROLYN: I grew up with a mother who was profoundly manipulative, volatile and mean-spirited. My siblings and I have anxiety disorders for which we have sought counseling. I have distanced myself from my mother and have a happy life with my husband and 4-year-old daughter.

1. Name the fourth planet from the sun. 2. Where would you expect to find hemoglobin? 3. What is the shape of our galaxy? 4. What type of electrical charge, if any, has a neutron? 5. Igneous rock is formed from cooled ————. 6. Between which two planets is the asteroid belt? 7. Mycology is the study of ————. 8. Sharks and rays differ from other fish in that they have ————. 9. What is made from sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate?

Jones Trust issues challenge The Jones Charitable Trust has issued a challenge grant of $17,500 to the Northwest Arkansas Women’s Shelter to help provide safe shelter and support services to an increasing number of men, women and child victims of domestic violence.

Tom Hanks swears. Not a blue streak, no, but it’s bracing to hear profanity from the man who has defined decency for three decades in Hollywood, playing white knights in Splash, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and the Toy Story series.

Mexican-Arkansan designer Rulli Torres has already ruffled up the fashion world after passing through New York and Dallas, where he resides after working under established couture designers Nicolas Villalba and Rosie del Bosque.

Van Slooten paints way to Eagle rank Nicholas Van Slooten, 14, of Bentonville is a new Eagle Scout. He is a member of Troop 222, which meets at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bentonville, and is the son of Paul and Jennifer Van Slooten.

GRAPE ESCAPES: A VINE AFFAIR BOST 1 6 p.m. — The 11th annual Grape Escapes: A Vine Affair will take place at the Holiday Inn City Center in Fort Smith. The Bost fundraiser will include food, auctions and 350 wines to taste. Must be 21 to attend. Tickets are $100. Information: (479) 478-5554.

George Avlos, 45, pleaded guilty Wednesday to evading federal income taxes and failing to pay payroll taxes for employees of his Fort Smith business, LinLex Inc. Avlos was the sole owner and president of the company, which provides consulting services as they relate to Department of Transportation regulations.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We bring in as many as 20,000 people to the area.They eat in their restaurants, shop in their shops, and buy gas in their gas stations. We’ve always made an argument that it’s a huge benefit to the tourism trade.” Dewey Patton, events director at Mulberry Mountain, site of the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival in Franklin County

The Arkansas Court of Appeals released opinions Wednesday. The court’s ruling and the names of the cases are reprinted here. The full opinions and other court proceedings, including per curiam decisions, orders and submissions, can be found on the Internet at courts.state.ar.us. PROCEEDINGS OF FEB. 27, 2013 CHIEF JUDGE ROBERT J. GLADWIN CACR12-778. Arthur Branch Jr. v.

Celebrated American pianist Cliburn Van Cliburn, the American pianist whose first-place award at the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow made him an overnight sensation and propelled him to a phenomenally successful and lucrative career, though a shortlived one, died Wednesday in Fort Worth. He was 78.

A man known as “the mechanic” in a Helena-West Helena auto shop that served as a front for a massive drug-trafficking operation was given a break Wednesday after a judge learned he was relieved to be arrested and have the chance to escape a life of “constant chaos.”

Festival organizers at Mulberry Mountain are projecting that Franklin County will receive a healthy boost in sales-tax revenue in 2013 thanks to increased musicfestival activity and a recent review of ticket sales by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.

The Securities and Exchange Commission must move more quickly in pressing some fraud lawsuits, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in a decision that has the potential to affect agencies across the government.

Arrests
Prairie Grove
• Michael Wilson, 42, of 14425 Wallen Mountain Road in West Fork was arrested Wednesday in connection with felony driving while intoxicated, along with misdemeanor parole violation, driving on a suspended license, no proof of insurance, failure to maintain control, expired vehicle license and resisting arrest. Wilson was in the Washington County Detention Center on $1,675 bond

A day after Arkansas made national headlines for wrangling a unique option for Medicaid expansion from the federal government, lawmakers, advocates and providers at the state Capitol on Wednesday tried to absorb the details of providing health coverage to 250,000 poor Arkansans through the state’s insurance exchange.

There were 10,074 new vehicles titled in January in Arkansas, the second most in the past five years behind only May 2012, when 10,170 were registered, said Cross-Sell of Lexington, Ky., a company that provides market analysis for the automotive industry.

With two Democrats and all 51 Republicans, the House of Representatives overrode on Wednesday the governor’s veto of a ban on most abortions after 20 weeks. The Senate will vote on the bill today, the Senate’s leader said.

President Barack Obama summoned congressional leaders to a meeting at the White House on Friday, the day $85 billion in spending cuts begin, as both parties say a deal to avert them probably won’t come before the deadline.

The chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville shared documents from his chief fundraiser’s personnel file with a donor and campus adviser nearly three weeks before he disciplined the employee in connection with the multimillion-dollar budget deficit in the school’s Advancement Division, university documents show.

Six of the seven airports in Arkansas that use air traffic control towers to manage flight operations stand to lose their tower services or see cuts in the number of hours their towers operate, if federal spending cuts take place, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that tested civil-rights era legislation designed to eliminate discrimination on Election Day, giving black voters and other minority groups more of a voice. In Shelby County v. Holder, Shelby County, Ala., argued that Congress overstepped its authority when it passed the Voting Rights Act of 2006

Libby Ganoung is following family tradition.
Ganoung has emerged as a key contributor for the Rogers High Lady Mounties just as her older sister Megan (2010) and older brother Jordan (2008) did for state basketball tournament teams at Rogers.

Lacey Murray still remembers her sophomore season like it was yesterday.
Murray and her Rogers Heritage teammates managed just eight wins, but they got to watch the Class 7A State Tournament since it was played at War Eagle Arena.

Arrests
4th Judicial District
Drug Task Force
• Brian Howell, 52, of 8 S. Hill Ave. in Fayetteville was arrested Monday in connection with felony possession of drug paraphernalia and three counts of possession of a controlled substance. He was in the Washington County Detention Center on $2,500 bond Tuesday.

Over the years, my mother let me quit a few things. After several failed attempts at sewing lessons, she accepted that the one and only thing I ever produced was a bath towel wrap with a piece of Velcro sloppily stitched to it.

Family activities are scheduled Saturday at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area in celebration of the life and career of Aldo Leopold who helped shape conservation and the modern environmental movement, according to a news release.

A man already serving 147 years in prison for eight counts of attempted capital murder, including shooting a Fayetteville police officer, pleaded guilty to a felony driving while intoxicated charge Tuesday.

A divided Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Republican Chuck Hagel to be the nation’s next defense secretary, handing President Barack Obama’s pick the top Pentagon job just days before billions of dollars in automatic, across-the-board budget cuts hit the military.

House Speaker Davy Carter on Tuesday asked the House Revenue and Taxation Committee to start work on tax cuts totaling $150 million, but Gov. Mike Beebe wants to see how his proposed budget would be sliced to finance these tax cuts.

Billy Ray Harris, a homeless Kansas City man who returned to Sarah Darling an engagement ring she had accidentally dropped in his cup, will get quite the thank-you gift after Darling’s grateful fiance set up a website seeking donations for Harris and raised nearly $160,000 by Tuesday night.

Lindsay Lohan’s attorney has suggested to Los Angeles prosecutors that the actress serve as a motivational speaker and in other ways, rather than go to jail, to resolve her latest criminal case, according to a letter obtained Tuesday. The letter from lawyer Mark Heller proposed several alternatives for Lohan, who could be sent to jail if a judge determines that her actions in a traffic crash violated terms of her probation in a previous theft case. His letter states that Lohan’s turbulent home life has deeply affected her and requires a different approach in the case.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We have moved a bill in the House twice; we should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something.” House Speaker John Boehner, as acrossthe-board spending reductions are set to take effect starting Friday Article, 1A Search off for boat reported sinking SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The Coast Guard on Tuesday called off the search for a boat that reportedly sank in rough seas far off the central California coast, saying nothing more could be done and that the family’s distress calls might have been a hoax.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Yesterday and today they have been trying to go forward, but there are lots of shelling and airstrikes.” Abu al-Hassan, an activist in Aleppo, Syria, who said rebels are trying to clear the army from residential areas near a police academy before they attack it Article, this page Union chief held; Mexico cites theft MEXICO CITY — The head of Mexico’s powerful teachers’ union was arrested at an airport near Mexico City Tuesday on charges of embezzlement, with federal officials accusing her of using union funds to pay for plastic surgery, buy a house in San Diego and pay her bill at Neiman Marcus.

Here we go again. And again. And again. . . For in Washington, every day is Groundhog Day. And now, once again, the country is speeding toward the dreaded … Fiscal Cliff! Not to mention Catastrophe, Chaos and Collapse. Or maybe Stalemate, Trainwreck, Dysfunction or whatever your favorite cliché may be. So quick, get the scare headlines back in type. The Great Tax vs. Spend Debate is on again, if it ever went away. With each side blaming the Coming and Constant Crisis on the other.

Congress and the Obama administration are likely to give the nation a self-inflicted wound known as the “sequester” later this week, a calculated decision that will lead to mindless budget-cutting and harm to the U.S. economy.

I recently hired a student to help me get wired into what I’m told is the minimum needed to survive in today’s digital world. So now in addition to Facebook, I am able to link in, tweet, Google Plus and other things I can’t remember because I haven’t used them yet.

Our legislative bullies What an awful time to be a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy in Arkansas. Some of the most respected, intelligent and necessary people in her life are working hard to make her life much more difficult.

MOTOR SPORTS Annett out indefinitely NASCAR driver Michael Annett has a fracture and dislocation of his sternum that will require surgery. Aric Almirola will replace him in the Nationwide Series this weekend at Phoenix. Annett was injured in a wreck during the Nationwide Series race Saturday at Daytona Beach, Fla. He spent one night in the hospital, but was seen Tuesday by two doctors in North Carolina who diagnosed the injury. Annett will not be able to compete for an indefinite amount of time. Almirola will drive the No. 43 Pilot Flying J Ford, and Richard Petty Motorsports will evaluate its options moving forward. Annett was injured in an accident that stopped the race for nearly 20 minutes. It was before the last-lap accident in which debris from a car injured more than two dozen fans.

CENTRAL ARKANSAS 19, MISS. VALLEY STATE 3 The Central Arkansas Bears (7-1 ) hit their first two home runs of the season as they easily handled Mississippi Valley State (1-8 ) in a nonconference game Tuesday afternoon at Bear Stadium in Conway. Junior first baseman Doug Votolato hit a three-run shot to right field in the third inning and senior right fielder Forrestt Allday hit another three-run home run to left-center in the seventh inning as UCA racked up 11 hits off four pitchers. Allday finished 3 for 5 with 4 RBI and 2 runs scored and made a spectacular diving catch in right field. Votolato was 1 for 3 with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored. UCA starter Ethan McKinzie gave up five hits and no earned runs in six innings for his first victory. UCA, which is 7-0 at home this season, fell behind 1-0 in the second inning but overcame that deficit with three runs in the bottom of the inning. Nick Rougeau had a sacrifice fly, Logan Moon scored on a balk and Allday had an RBI single. Votolato made it 6-1 with one swing in

Poor weather has thrown UALR and Central Arkansas a curve. Iowa and Wichita State had midweek series postponed because of snow in Kansas and Iowa, so instead the teams will play games in Conway and Little Rock this week. UALR, which had a game at Oklahoma State postponed Tuesday, will host Wichita State at 4 p.m. Thursday, then will play Iowa at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday before closing out the weekend against Western Illinois at 1 p.m. Sunday. All the games will be played at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock.

Tennessee guard Jordan McRae doesn’t enjoy answering questions about his team’s NCAA Tournament prospects. McRae and the Volunteers are making enough of a statement on the floor. McRae scored 27 points Tuesday night as Tennessee boosted its postseason hopes by beating No. 8 Florida 64-58, the Vols’ sixth consecutive victory. McRae had a career-high 34 points against LSU and 23 points against Texas A&M in the two games leading up to this one. “I keep saying the same answer,” McRae said.

Peyton Henson scored a game-high 30 points to help Siloam Springs hold off Russellville’s three-point shooters in a 56-46 victory in the opening round of the Class 6A boys state tournament at H.B. Stewart Bulldog Arena.

Senior guard Chase Anderson led hot shooting Jessieville with 24 points in a 60-45 victory over Manila in Tuesday’s opening round of the Class 3A boys state tournament at the Riverview High School Activity Center.

Beebe didn’t have much left in the tank late in the game, but it was enough to survive in a 53-50, double-overtime victory against Watson Chapel on Tuesday during the Class 5A boys state tournament at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.

Watson Chapel didn’t exactly win the way it was expecting, but a 29-28 victory over Nettleton at the Pine Bluff Convention Center on Tuesday was enough to put the Lady Wildcats into the second round of the Class 5A girls state tournament.

The Weiner Cardinals erased an early 15-point deficit and outscored Guy-Perkins 16-6 coming out of the halftime break en route to a 58-52 victory in the first round of the Class 1A girls state tournament Tuesday.

State to developer: Cease and desist The Arkansas Securities Department issued a cease-and-desist order against Rodney Myers of Hot Springs and R.D. Myers Development Inc. Tuesday, ordering Myers to stop soliciting or selling unregistered securities in Arkansas.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank, plans to reduce headcount by as many as 19,000 people in its mortgage and community banking businesses through 2014 as Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon cuts expenses.

BP failed to implement a new safety plan on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig even though the company realized a blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was its greatest danger, an expert witness for people and businesses suing the company testified Tuesday.

Rising revenue at American Indian-owned gambling operations shows investments in amenities like hotels and restaurants by tribal casinos in Oklahoma, including those along the Arkansas border, seem to be paying off, according to a study being released today.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s definitely good news to see exports increase.That means we’re producing something that the rest of the world is demanding.” Michael Pakko, chief economist, Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Article, 1D Beers’ alcohol overstated, suits say PHILADELPHIA — Beer lovers have filed lawsuits accusing Anheuser-Busch of overstating the alcohol content of its Budweiser, Michelob and other brands.

A jump in home sales and strong earnings from The Home Depot Inc. helped the Dow claw back more than half of its losses from Monday. Improving consumer confidence also brought back buyers to the market on Tuesday.

A craving for carnitas — a flavorful braised pork dish that makes a delicious taco filling — led me to create this recipe. The dish, which translates as “little meats,” is usually made with an inexpensive, fatty cut like pork butt and involves a combination of braising and frying the meat. This version uses lean pork tenderloin (because that’s what I had on hand), but thanks to some bacon drippings and a spoonful of lard, it isn’t lacking in flavor.

The Ici Batter Whisk is designed for gently, but thoroughly mixing thick batters like cornbread, waffles, quick breads, muffins and, of course, pancakes. The sturdy stainless steel and silicone whisk combines ingredients quickly (reducing the chance of overmixing), helps scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as it mixes (fewer large pockets of dry mix in the batter), and won’t scratch nonstick cookware. The silicone is heat resistant to 600 degrees, making this a safe choice for stirring sauces and other hot mixtures.

This main-dish soup is a great way to use up leftover meat such as pork or chicken. The hearty dish combines shredded meat, black beans, onion, chipotle peppers, corn and tomatoes. The soup is ready to eat in about 20 minutes.

Here’s what you won’t be adding to the pasta cooking water or the thick, chunky, naturally sweet sauce: salt. In truth, we missed it only as a finishing note. So if your constitution can handle a little sprinkling of the stu, do so right before serving, per portion. Serve with a salad of bitter greens.

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: I’ve started reading the Bible every day, and I’ve been surprised at how many people opposed Jesus and even wanted to kill Him. It doesn’t make sense, because they should have welcomed Him. Why did this happen? — V.K. DEAR V.K.: You’re right, it doesn’t make sense that some people opposed Jesus and even wanted Him dead. After all, wherever He went He healed the sick and gave people hope for the future. As the Bible says, “He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him” (Acts 10:38).

Happy birthday. You have a burning desire and a clear right choice. Because you know what you must do, the consequences suddenly become inconsequential. Your work for the good of all won’t be glorified, but it will be rewarded in deeply profound ways. Band together in April. June brings publicity. July adds romance.

SUNDAY: Make it family time with Lamb Kebabs With Bacon and Cilantro (see recipe). Serve the kebabs with orzo tossed with toasted pine nuts and a mixed-greens salad. For dessert, buy a coconut layer cake. Plan ahead: Save two kebabs and leftover cake and prepare enough orzo for Monday. MONDAY: Make Lamb Pitas tonight. Line whole-grain pitas with lettuce leaves. Dice and heat the leftover kebabs and mix with 2 cups cooked hot orzo and just enough chicken broth to moisten; stuff pitas with mixture.

I’m in touch with only a couple of my friends from middle school. And even so, barely. But we used to call ourselves the “Magnificent Seven,” and promised we’d be friends forever. At least that’s what our onepage ad in the yearbook claimed, with ridiculous photos of us and our over-plucked eyebrows, braces and absurd bangs as proof of our supposed magnificence. We each demanded an exorbitant sum of money from our parents for the page, which in retrospect seems particularly demented given that we were already plastered throughout the entire book, especially in the “Class Favorites” section: “Best Hair,” “Most Likely to Succeed,” “Most Outgoing.” Did I mention we were in yearbook class and in charge of “counting” the votes? At a small K-8 school in a Southern California city of sprawling ocean views and houses on the hills, the odds were against the homely, poor or kids otherwise deemed uncool. The hierarchy of popularity was largely defined by family name (how cool your older sister was and who your

When I bring one of my cats (I have three) home from the veterinarian, the others hiss and refuse to have anything to do with him. Sometimes they even swat at him. Is there anything I can do to make sure this doesn’t happen?

Someone recently told me she wanted her children to “think for themselves.” Not me, I said. If I was still in my active parenting years, I would most definitely want my children to think like I do. That would be, in fact, my primary purpose. I would want them to accept that my values are the right values to hold and I’d want them to eventually make every effort to pass those values on to their children. But then, I don’t subscribe to the postmodern notion that all values are equal. I’m not a relativist.

DEAR JEANNE & LEONARD : My sister divorced her husband 20 years ago, but recently he moved back in with her. “Mike” is supposed to help with expenses, in exchange for which he gets to stay in her house for as long as he lives. I’m worried, though. “Peggy” has promised her ex a home for the rest of his life, while Mike’s obligations couldn’t be more vague. What happens if his idea of helping with expenses turns out to be nothing more than paying the cable bill? Or if he invites a girlfriend to move in? Or if my sister needs to sell her house? Peggy says she and her ex are not romantically involved and acknowledges that she doesn’t need his financial help. What can I say to convince her that this ill-considered plan is just asking for trouble? — D.E. DEAR D.E.: Maybe trouble is what she’s looking for.

DEAR READERS: Everyone has a cutting board or two in the kitchen, and some are in pretty bad shape. Here are recommendations from the United States Department of Agriculture regarding cutting boards to help keep food safe: Nonporous cutting boards made of plastic, glass or recycled materials are easier to clean than wooden boards. Keep at least two cutting boards: one for cutting only fruits and vegetables, the other for meats.

1. Dana title: Two ——— Before the Mast 2. “You’ve Gotta Have ————” 3. The “shot ——— ‘round the world” 4. Steinbeck title: The ————5. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and —————.” 6. Benjamin Franklin: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I ————.” 7. Goatee or Van Dyke, for example 8. Goethe: “I love those who ——— for the impossible.” 9. Churchill: “I do not hold that we should ——— in order to fight. I hold that we should ———— in order to parley.

Just Born is the company that makes Peeps. You may remember I wrote about the marshmallow treats for Valentine’s Day. But the company also makes Hot Tamales, Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews and Mike and Ike.

Home Depot on Tuesday reported a fourth-quarter profit that topped analysts’ estimates as shoppers spent more on projects and superstorm Sandy repairs. The company also raised its dividend and approved a $17 billion share buyback.

A 33-year-old Springdale man was sentenced to nine years in prison Monday after pleading guilty in November to a federal firearms violation. Michael Carnes, who listed his employment as dealing in adult novelties, was found to be a felon in possession of a firearm.

Saline County Circuit Clerk Dennis Milligan of Benton has formed a committee to explore the possibility of running for state treasurer as a Republican next year. Talk show host and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., and businessman and former state Highway Commissioner Madison Murphy of El Dorado are co-chairmen of the Committee to Elect Dennis Milligan, Milligan said Tuesday.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “You wish none of this had happened. He expressed an apology to us and wished it didn’t happen. No one here is happy about any of it.” Kyle Kellams, news director at KUAF, on the University of Arkansas student who discharged a handgun at the campus radio station Feb. 8 Article, 1B Surveying a new development Craig Hyler with Engineering Services, Inc., hammers a stake where he and a co-worker were surveying on North 40th Street in Springdale on Tuesday. The team took elevation points every 50 feet so developers could have a better understanding of the terrain before building. Today’s meetings Fayetteville Technical Plat Review, 9 a.m. Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, 1:30 p.m. Bentonville Board of Adjustments, 5 p.m. Benton County Public Safety Committee, 6 p.m.

The board of directors for Ozark Natural Science Center expressed gratitude Tuesday for the many volunteers and financial gifts over the 21 years it has offered children’s programs, but wouldn’t detail the financial constraints behind the impending closure of the center.

A warrant was issued Tuesday for the arrest of a University of Arkansas student who discharged a handgun Feb. 8 in the building that houses the campus radio station in Fayetteville, said a Washington County prosecutor.

Syrian rebels battled government troops near a landmark 12th-century mosque in the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday while fierce clashes raged around a police academy west of the city, activists said.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham pressed President Barack Obama on the importance of border security at a rare White House meeting Tuesday and came away praising the president’s commitment to overhauling the nation’s immigration laws.

For the second time in a week, a major winter storm paralyzed parts of the nation’s midsection Tuesday, dumping a fresh layer of heavy, wet snow atop cities still choked with piles from the previous system and making travel perilous from the Oklahoma panhandle to the Great Lakes.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 27, 1913 Once again did the temperance toilers of the house step forth yesterday and assail the old Demon Rum, than which no beast or being is less beloved by a safe and stalwart majority of the north house of the General Assembly. An “anti-treating” bill, which also provides penalties for drunkenness in public office, passed the house with little or no argument, by the vote of 47 to 36.

Dear Abby: I need help and I can’t talk to anyone I know, so I’m pouring my heart out to you. My husband is addicted to online porn. Our sex life has suffered massively because of it. He seems uninterested in sex with me. I had a feeling that it might be something or someone else.

As a parent of two Elmwood students, I have given much thought to the boundary proposal and how it will affect my children and my children’s school. Westside families will not be the only ones aff ected.

If Arkansas’ Republican-led Legislature doesn’t want to follow Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe’s lead on Medicaid expansion, maybe they’ll listen to the growing number of Republican governors who have made that choice.

Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday said the U.S. House won’t act to replace automatic federal spending cuts until the Senate “gets off their ass” and passes a plan. Boehner also accused President Barack Obama of using the military as a “prop” to campaign for a tax increase in the debate over across-the-board spending reductions that will take effect starting Friday.

A University of Central Arkansas administrator who awarded some of the scholarships cited in an internal audit has suggested that the problems are in part due to a push by past administrations to increase scholarships.

Defense attorneys representing a Rogers man accused of killing an 11-month-old boy will raise the issue of mental disease or defect to defend him.
Michael Proffitt Jr., 38, is charged in connection with capital murder. He could be sentenced to life in prison without parole or the death penalty if convicted. Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Van Stone has said he will seek the death penalty. Proffitt is being held without bond in the Benton County Jail.

An administrator at NorthWest Arkansas Community College is suing a woman over statements made about him on the Internet.
Houston attorney Paul Kerlin filed the suit Monday in Benton County Circuit Court on behalf of Steven Gates against Francesca M. Cataldo.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe is criticizing Lt. Gov. Mark Darr for making secret the list of Arkansas residents allowed to carry concealed weapons, saying the Republican “embarrassed himself” by signing the legislation while the governor was out of state.

Britain’s highest-ranking Catholic leader resigned and removed himself Monday from the coming conclave, saying he did not want allegations that he engaged in improper conduct with priests to be a distraction during the solemn process of choosing the next leader of the church’s 1.2 billion-member flock.

GIRLS SOCCER
Bentonville 7, Fort Smith Southside 0
Tayler Estrada recorded a first-half hat trick and assisted on two other goals to lead Bentonville past Fort Smith Southside in the season opener for both teams Monday at the Tiger Athletic Complex.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Is it a drought-buster ? Absolutely not.Will it bring short-term improvement? Yes.” Victor Murphy, National Weather Service meteorologist, on storms bearing down on the nation’s midsection Monday Article, this page

Star Trek fans, rejoice. An online vote to name Pluto’s two newest moons is over. And No. 1 is Vulcan, a name suggested by actor William Shatner, who played Capt. James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek TV series.

Dov Hikind, a New York Democratic assemblyman, apologized for wearing blackface, an Afro wig and a basketball jersey to a costume party to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim, saying his actions were “not meant to in any way to hurt anyone,” issuing the mea culpa hours after dismissing the criticism as “political correctness to the absurd.”

This is a summary list of bills (by bill number, lead sponsor and title) introduced through Monday in the 89th General Assembly, except for appropriation bills, which, along with other bills and resolutions, may be found at the legislative website: www.arkleg.state.ar.us

A Little Rock man who can’t seem to stop making bombs pleaded guilty Monday to a federal charge accusing him of making one in his backyard in 2010 that exploded between his legs and left him a partial amputee.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 26, 1913 For the first time perhaps in the history of Pulaski county the gambling houses of Little Rock and Argenta are tightly closed. If there is any gaming going on in either city it is surrounded by a secrecy that would baffle the skill of a Sherlock Holmes.

They’re baaack! Just about two years ago, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairmen of the late unlamented debt commission, warned us to expect a terrible fiscal crisis within, um, two years unless we adopted their plan.

One of the biggest difficulties in building America’s defenses against predatory computer hacking is that relatively few people seem to take it seriously, as if it’s the work of a few nerdy high schoolers and merry pranksters. Recent news about systematic computer espionage by the Chinese military should serve as a wake-up call about this critical national security threat.

Fourth in a series previewing the 2013 inductees into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. Marcus Brown was not the most highly regarded high school basketball player in 1991, but maybe he should have been.

Arkansas-Pine Bluff let a nine-point second-half lead slip away, but rallied from a five-point deficit with a minute remaining to escape with a 73-72 victory at H.O. Clemmons Arena in its final home game of the season.

Arkansas sophomore guard BJ Young’s last game was his lowest-scoring since his first one as a Razorback. Young, who is averaging 15.4 points in 58 career games, scored three points in Arkansas’ 71-54 loss at Florida on Saturday night while going 0 of 8 from the field.

Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman received a raise of $225,000 to $500,000 per season on a three-year deal. Pittman got the raise from his original salary of $275,000 after Alabama pursued the highly regarded line coach.

FOOTBALL Vols lose assistant Tennessee Coach Butch Jones announced on Twitter on Monday that running backs coach Jay Graham “has informed us of his decision to accept a position at another institution.”

TRACK AND FIELD ASU women win Sun Belt indoor title Arkansas State’s women won the Sun Belt Conference indoor title Monday in Jonesboro. The women finished with 122.5 points to win their first team title in 13 years. UALR’s women did not score.

BP bears most of the blame for the disastrous 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico because it cut corners and put profits ahead of safety, a U.S. Justice Department attorney said Monday at the opening of a high-stakes trial that could result in the oil company and its partners being forced to pay billions more in damages.

UA gets berry grant from Wal-Mart arm The University of Arkansas System’s Agriculture Division received a $3 million grant from the Walmart Foundation to develop a national program to enhance sustainable strawberry production.

When it comes to a musical education, acoustic guitarist Laurence Juber believes he received “a master’s degree from McCartney University,” referring to his years as a member of Wings, Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band.

March blows in with a gusty gust of lions, leprechauns and chocolate rabbits, and breezes out with more pirates, peas, peanuts and pens, and coffee jitters, than an Elvis look-alike could shake a lamb’s tail at.

BASEBALL
• NWA Dirtbags, a 16U competitive team, will hold a tryout Sunday, March 3 at 2 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus field in Tontitown. Team will play a 20-plus game league schedule and 3-4 additional tournaments. Email nwadirtbags@gmail.com for more information.

I remember spending hours with Beatrix Potter at bedtime when our son was young. There’s nothing like a brave, mischievous, impulsive and resilient little rabbit to go along with the evening’s traditional finale of Goodnight Moon.

Elsewhere in entertainment and the arts: Biwa concert Japanese biwa player Yoko Hiraoka will give a concert of traditional Japanese music and stories at 7:30 p.m. today in Arkansas State University’s Carl R. Reng Student Union, 101 N. Caraway Road, Jonesboro, part of the university’s 2012-13 Lecture-Concert Series.

DEAR CAROLYN: I’m a thirty something woman in a long-term relationship with a man who I really love and like, and who my parents like as well. We are very happy together, and have decided not to have children.

DEAR READERS: What would we do without electricity ? We take it, and sometimes safety, for granted. Here are a few hints about meter-box safety. Read these and see if you are practicing safe homeowner guidelines: If you have a circuit breaker that “pops off” several times, you need to call a licensed electrician to have the fuse and the meter box checked.

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: Does God get upset at us if we get angry at Him? I admit I do occasionally, but people in the Bible sometimes got angry at God, so maybe it doesn’t matter. What’s your opinion? — R.B.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I believe he was joining the fraternity that day. That was bid day.” Scott Flanagin, a spokesman for the University of Arkansas’ Division of Student Affairs, on a student who was hospitalized Saturday with possible alcohol poisoning Article, 1B

Van Buren police were looking at evidence trying to identify a man who robbed a convenience store at gunpoint Sunday night and who told the clerk he had a bomb that he would detonate if she called the police, according to a police news release.

The graduate program in physics at the University of Arkansas has a new name. The program will be called the Raymond H. Hughes Graduate Program in Physics after the former UA physics professor, thanks to a $500,000 endowed gift from Hughes’ wife, Olive Jane Wipson, and their four children.

Transformed surgeon general job C. Everett Koop, who raised the profile of the surgeon general by riveting America’s attention on the then emerging disease known as AIDS and by railing against smoking, has died in New Hampshire at age 96.

The Joint Budget Committee’s Claims Subcommittee reversed a Claims Commission ruling Monday evening and found the Department of Human Services liable in the death of a 9-year-old boy who was crushed to death by a soccer goalpost.

Future county and city elected officials who are members of the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System would pay 7.5 percent of their salary to the system to get credit for two years for each year they work under a bill that cleared a legislative committee Monday.

The nation’s midsection again dealt with blizzard conditions Monday as a new storm killed two people, closed highways, knocked out power to thousands in Texas and Oklahoma, and hit the Texas panhandle with hurricane-force wind.

Arrests
Little Flock
• Brandon Joseph Longo, 39, of 6 Dogwood Drive in Bella Vista was arrested Monday in connection with fleeing and obstructing governmental operations. Longo was being held Monday in the Benton County Jail with no bond set.

Less than two weeks away from the opening of his first spring practice at Arkansas, Coach Bret Bielema and his wife Jen are on the brink of getting a house in Fayetteville and settling in after the whirlwind of assembling a coaching staff and a recruiting class.

A 34-year-old Little Rock man accused of killing his parents and abducting his sister has been committed to the State Hospital, at least temporarily, after state doctors diagnosed him as mentally ill and unfit to stand trial.

A new Walmart Neighborhood Market is set to open in Bentonville's fastest growing area this fall. Southwest Bentonville will be home to the 41,179-square foot market at the northwest corner of Southwest I Street and Southwest Regional Airport Boulevard.
The new development was announced Monday at the Bentonville-Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce.

Bella Vista Police are asking for assistance in identifying a home burglary suspect.
After the report of a Feb. 15 burglary on Southam Lane, police were able to obtain video surveillance footage of a male subject inside the home, Capt. Tim Cook said.

A registered sex offender was sentenced Monday to 35 years in prison after admitting to sexually abusing three girls.
Jimmy Allen Martin, 37, of Siloam Springs pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of rape, a Class Y felony, and sexual assault in the second degree, a Class B felony. His plea was under an agreement his attorney Deputy Public Defender Sarah Ashley reached with Deputy Prosecutor Bonnie Bridges.

A 19-year-old University of Arkansas student was transported to Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville on Saturday with possible alcohol poisoning, said Lt. Gary Crain, a spokesman for the UA Police Department.

Two Rogers men are each being held on half million dollar bonds after their arrests in connection with shooting at a vehicle Friday night.
Douglas Blake Huston, 18, and Robert Aaron Thomas, 18, were arrested on charges of attempted capital murder, a class A felony; and first-degree discharge of a firearm from a car and a terroristic act, both class B felonies. They were being held Monday morning in the Benton County Jail on $500,000 bonds.

Air traffic control towers in Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers could close should sequestration — a series of wide-ranging across-the-board budget cuts — be triggered Friday, according to a Federal Aviation Administration news release.

The White House and Republicans kept up the unrelenting mudslinging Sunday over who’s to blame for roundly condemned budget cuts set to take effect at week’s end, with the administration detailing the potential fallout in each state and governors worrying about the mess.

Rebels backed by captured tanks launched a fresh offensive on a government complex housing a police academy near the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, while the government hit back with airstrikes to try to protect the strategic installation, activists said.

Thousands of brick workers blocked railroad tracks from a southern city to Cairo for a second day Sunday to protest rising industrial oil prices, causing the cancellation of some services, security officials said.

When Jessica Bravo went to Washington this month to talk to her congressman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., about expanding rights for illegal aliens, their meeting ended in a shouting match and tears.

Conservative candidate Nicos Anastasiades won Cyprus’ presidency Sunday by one of the widest margins in 30 years, and now faces the formidable task of preventing the country from suffering a financial meltdown.

Palestinian officials Sunday called for an international investigation into the death of a 30-year old prisoner in an Israeli jail, saying the man was tortured during interrogation, as thousands of Palestinian prisoners went on a one-day hunger strike in protest.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “There are some groups of American special forces — and Afghans considered to be part of the American special forces — who are conducting raids, searching houses, harassing and torturing people, and even murdering our innocent people.” Aimal Faizi, spokesman for President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, where U.S. special operations forces were banned Sunday from operating in a strategic province adjoining Kabul Article, 1A

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Why expand in a place where the people who built the gun couldn’t buy it?” Jeffrey Reh, general counsel for Beretta, which is weighing whether it should continue operations in Maryland after an assault-weapons ban advanced in the state Legislature Article, this page

The Twilight team finally has earned some love — or loathing — from Team Razzies. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 was picked as last year’s worst picture Saturday by the Razzies, an Academy Awards spoof that hands out prizes for Hollywood’s lousiest movies on the eve of the Oscars.

The White House compiled the following estimates from federal agencies and its own budget office. The numbers are based only on the $85 billion in cuts for this fiscal year, from March-September, that are set to take effect Friday.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 25, 1913 Rueben G. Dye, state land commissioner, put in a rather strenuous day yesterday. Having his office declared vacant by Attorney General Moose, being appointed to it by Governor Robinson and then seeing the house pass a bill to abolish the office — all in one day — was his experience.

WORD has it that Barack Obama’s campaign staff began to refer to “Joe Bombs” way back during the 2008 election. When somebody in the press would ask the campaign to comment on what Joe Biden had just said, aides would be called on to dodge or disable that day’s Joe Bomb.

The president suggested he would hold off introducing his own immigration bill as long as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace—until his own immigration bill mysteriously leaked precisely as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace.

The day is drawing near when Afghans will have total control over their nation’s counterinsurgency operations. They know as well as anyone that the Taliban will continue to occupy towns and villages to expand their foothold in the countryside.

Election 2012 was the most ideologically significant presidential contest since Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale back in 1984, only this time it was conservatism, not liberalism, that got thumped.

Lee fought for legacy I disagree with letter writer Justin Coussoule’s comments on Robert E. Lee. Lee’s father, Henry Lee, was a general in the Continental Army that fought for self-government and state sovereignty.

SUN BELT UALR 13, SIU-EDWARDSVILLE 1 Austin Pfeiffer hit a grand slam in the second inning while, John Clark and Bryson Thionnet also homered to help UALR complete a three-game sweep of SIU-Edwardsville on Sunday at Gary Hogan Field in Little Rock.

BASKETBALL Odom to speak at Tip-Off Club Former Wake Forest and South Carolina Coach Dave Odom will be the guest speaker today at the Downtown Tip-Off Club at the Wyndham Riverfront hotel in North Little Rock.

Hackers have hit thousands of U.S. corporations in the past few years, but few companies ever publicly admit it. Most treat online attacks as a dirty secret best kept from customers, shareholders and competitors for fear that disclosure will sink their stock price and tarnish them as hapless.

Title: Pilates Towel Workout for Strength & Mobility (Stott Pilates, Merrithew Health & Fitness) What’s the goal: A dynamic warmup that can be done daily to support mobility of joints and that can be used anywhere — for instance, in a hotel room.

DEAR READERS: Here is this week’s sound off, about drivers not using their turn signal: “As a retired state highway patrolman, I am disgusted by the number of drivers who, for some reason — whether it’s through ignorance, stupidity or just arrogance — fail to use a turn signal to let other drivers know their intentions. Even fellow highway patrolmen, deputies and police officers in marked squad cars are guilty of this.

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: We attended a wedding recently, during which the preacher read something from the Bible about the need for charity. What does charity have to do with marriage? I guess I didn’t understand what point he was trying to make. — M.T.

1. Seven no-trump is the highest possible bid. 2. There is a right bower and a left bower. 3. Players have to avoid winning certain cards in tricks. 4. Each hand is played in three phases: bidding, melds and tricks.

Take a walk through a human brain? Fly over the surface of Mars? Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago are pushing science fiction closer to reality with a wraparound virtual world where a researcher wearing 3-D glasses can do all that and more.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “As teachers, we compete with video games, texting, music, Internet, movies. So rather than compete with it, why not join it?” Anne Minton, Prairie Grove Middle School teacher, on using video recordings of her classroom lessons under a system called “flipped learning” Article, 1B

Tabasco sauce CEO, innovator
AVERY ISLAND, La. — Paul C.P. McIlhenny, chief executive and chairman of the board of the McIlhenny Co., which makes the trademarked line of Tabasco hot-pepper sauces sold the world over, has died.

In a 45-minute police recording played Thursday in Pulaski County Circuit Court, a Little Rock man told detectives that he was so consumed with rage that he went on a three-hour shooting rampage to settle scores with relatives and acquaintances he said had wronged him.

On the production floor of Beretta USA sits a hulking new barrel-making machine ready to churn out the next object of obsession in America’s lovehate relationship with guns: a civilian version of a machine gun designed for special-operations forces and popularized in the video game Call of Duty.

I read the letter by Dale Lange of Bella Vista (Public Viewpoint, Feb. 17). He belittled or talked down to Art Hobson about his beliefs. He thinks Art Hobson is a man with little understanding of anything he cannot see, feel, or touch. He says he has a small view of life and is living in a box.

Since last November, when the Republican Party gained control of the Arkansas House and Senate, there’s been considerable gnashing of teeth over whether the General Assembly would start to look like Washington.

The Afghan government on Sunday banned elite U.S. forces from operating in a strategic province adjoining Kabul, citing complaints that Afghans working for U.S. special operations forces have killed and abused villagers in the area.

Pope Benedict XVI bestowed his final Sunday blessing of his pontificate on a cheering crowd in St. Peter’s Square, explaining that his waning years and energy made him better suited to the life of private prayer he soon will spend in a secluded monastery than as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. On Thursday evening, the 85-year-old German-born theologian will become the first pope to have resigned from the papacy in 600 years.

Arrests
Benton County
Sheriff’s Office
• Christopher William Zerbest, 22, of 1928 S. Ninth St. in Rogers was arrested Saturday in connection with felony delivery, possession with intent to deliver or manufacturing with intent to deliver and tampering with physical evidence. Zerbest was being held Sunday in the Benton County Jail with no bond set.

Two Rogers men were jailed Saturday on attempted capital murder charges in connection with shooting at a vehicle.
Douglas Blake Huston, 18, of 3409 West Chestnut, was booked into the Benton County Jail at 5:44 p.m. Saturday in connection with attempted capital murder, a Class A felony, discharge of a firearm from car, and terroristic act, both Class B felonies.

In the first week of March, a laid-off person living on $300 a week in unemployment benefits is liable to find a surprise in the mailbox: notification from Uncle Sam that come April the check will be $33 lighter.

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Chancellor G. David Gearhart threatened to call in auditors as early as Aug. 6 last year if he couldn’t get answers regarding a surprise $3 million-plus budget deficit in the Division of University Advancement, university records show.

No. 1 Arkansas piled up points in the men’s 10,000 meters and the heptathlon to take an 18-point lead over Florida on Saturday heading into the final day of the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships.

A pharmacy benefit management company paid for state lawmakers to tour its company’s headquarters in St. Louis, the state’s electric cooperatives paid for lawmakers to tour a coal mine in Wyoming and an energy consortium paid for a state lawmaker to meet with provincial officials in Canada last year.

With no explanation, the Arkansas Senate earlier this month approved a resolution to recognize “the many contributions made by citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan” and indicate that it’s in Arkansas’ best interest to promote relationships with the people of that nation, which declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

There were texts and tweets and phone alerts. When the 15-minute warning went out, all in the media room at Lucas Oil Stadium packed the area around Podium C. Some had been saving front-row seats since a false alarm two hours earlier.

The Arkansas State Racing Commission voted 4-1 on Saturday morning to void a $5,000 claim made Feb. 10 by trainer Steve Asmussen on behalf of owner Mike Langford of Jonesboro, even though the claim didn’t meet the new Oaklawn Park criteria for invalidation.

In 2001, as the Taliban government collapsed, the Kabul Zoo had been almost destroyed by years of war and neglect. Exhibits were bombed out, and many of the animals had been maimed, eaten by hungry Afghans or died of hunger.

At least 33 fans were injured Saturday during a NASCAR race when a car flew into the fence on the front stretch at Daytona International Speedway, hurling a tire and large pieces of debris into the stands.

“Exotic species” are different in Afghanistan. For example, the Kabul Zoo is home to what’s thought to be the nation’s only captive pig, really a big boar. Pork is haram, or forbidden, in Islam, hence the lack of domestic swine.

Ive Struck a Nerve, allowed to go off at odds of 135-1, edged out Code West in a photo finish to pull off a stunning upset in the $400,000 Grade II Risen Star Stakes on Saturday at the Fair Grounds in the final prep for the Louisiana Derby.

Maxim Molokoedov, 25, a Russian former professional soccer player who completed his three-year sentence in a Chilean prison for drug trafficking, is being allowed to remain in the country to play professional soccer after an order to expel him from the country was revoked, according to Justice Minister Juan Ignacio Pina.

Pottsville Coach Shane Thurman knows his team has to be good in transition to be successful. Saturday night in the Class 4A North Region semifinals, point guard Michael Perry pushed the ball at every opportunity to lead the charge in a 59-41 victory against Lincoln.

The former Canadian ambassador to Iran who protected Americans at great personal risk during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis says it will reflect poorly on Ben Affleck if he doesn’t say a few words about Canada’s role should the director’s film Argo win the Oscar for best picture tonight.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Can we survive this? Of course we can. It’s a $16 trillion economy.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, as the March 1 budget-cut deadline nears Article, 1A

QUOTE OF THE DAY “[I] called for parliamentary election boycott in 2010 to expose sham democracy. Today I repeat my call, will not be part of an act of deception.” Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel laureate and Egyptian opposition leader, in a Tweet calling for a boycott of parliamentary elections Article, this page

The French military intervention in Mali has increased the threat of domestic terrorism, with some French citizens of black African ancestry becoming more willing to fight under the banner of jihad, according to France’s most prominent investigative judge dealing with terrorism.

Arkansas State didn’t equal the offensive pace it showed during three consecutive victories heading into Saturday night, but its defensive effort was enough to give the Red Wolves their fourth consecutive victory, and this one clinched the Sun Belt Conference West Division title.

North Korea on Saturday warned the top U.S. military commander in South Korea that if the United States pressed ahead with joint military exercises with South Korea — set to begin next month — it could set off a war in which U.S. forces would “meet a miserable destruction.”

Freshman forward Jalen O’Bannon led the Arkansas State women with 18 points, while junior Jane Morrill added 13 to lead the Red Wolves to a 71-49 victory over Troy Saturday afternoon at the Convocation Center in Jonesboro.

A central Texas school district where a former principal was accused of blaming black students at one campus for bad test scores will be visited this week by U.S. Department of Education investigators looking into racial-discrimination allegations.

Arkansas running backs coach Joel Thomas and Coach Bret Bielema’s emphasis on the running game has one of the nation’s more highly recruited running backs, Jonathan Hilliman, looking to visit the Hogs during the spring.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 24, 1913 Because a committee appeared before the Little Rock School Board at a meeting Saturday night and asked that the pupils of the high school be allowed to give dances as a part of their entertainments, pastors of two Little Rock churches yesterday deplored dancing in the schools.

MEN ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF 61, GRAMBLING STATE 45 PINE BLUFF — Arkansas-Pine Bluff made 56.8 percent of its shots in the first half and never trailed while handing Grambling State its 24th consecutive loss Saturday night.

Wanda and E. Ralph Smith of Little Rock will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary. The couple were married Feb. 25, 1948. She is the former Wanda J. Price and is retired from the Federal Credit Union.

In case you’ve missed all the hype and hoopla, ABC airs the Oscars today starting at 6 p.m. with 90 minutes of red carpet reporting. The biggest names always arrive in the last half hour before the cameras head inside the Dolby Theatre (the erstwhile Kodak Theatre).

Whew, this year’s birth month seemed to bring with it a slate of bad, disturbing or distressing news. Cruise-ship mishaps, a papal resignation, a once-admired Olympic athlete charged with murdering his girlfriend.

Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit From the Goon Squad (winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award), The Invisible Circus, Look at Me and The Keep, will be in residence Tuesday-Wednesday at the University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway.

Running a for-profit gift shop in a nonprofit museum, though seemingly contradictory, produces revenue that goes hand in hand with the operation of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, said Mary Douthit, retail manager.

DEAR CAROLYN: Last spring we attended the wedding of my husband’s best friend. When we visited the couple the year before, they threw out a couple of dates they were considering. When the fiancee mentioned the birthday date, my husband, the groom-to-be and I all said, “Oh, that’s Jason’s 40th.”

A half-century later, Jose Rafa Malem remembers the balmy breezes blowing through the bar’s arching porticos, the grain of the tall wood stools, the whiff of Pedro Domecq brandy on his father’s breath.

A group representing importers of inexpensive solar panels from China said that imposing tariffs would lead to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the European Union, the biggest export market for the Chinese equipment.

When researching my guidebooks, almost by definition I have to revisit the same places. But I also like to take a few day trips here and there to scout new destinations for future editions and TV shows. On my last visit to Europe, I explored many places, including the lush lowlands of Holland.

Q: My wife and I travel to Israel at least twice a year to visit children and grandchildren. There is a 10-hour time difference between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. Because of time constraints, we can stay only about seven days. Even though we take Ambien on the plane, we are hit with heavy jet lag for the entire time we are in Israel, which affects the enjoyment of our trip. Is there anything we can do to reduce the jet lag?

Over the years, I’ve pitched “positioning cruises” as one of the top travel bargains, and this year will be no exception. The best rates will be for sailings in April, with several starting at $30 to $35 per person per night. That’s about what you’d pay for a budget motel — and the cruise throws in meals and entertainment.

In times of war, the law is not silent. War is not a moral wilderness: At the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the use of the crossbow was banned among European knights. Throughout history, there have been codes that even the hell of war could not override.

On January 21, 2013, Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term as president of the United States. Looking out at a crowd of hundreds of thousands, he laid out what has been referred to by the press as a “traditional liberal agenda.”

“It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.” —Holden Caulfield Catcher in the Rye AT LAST, there’s something at least a couple of the sides can agree on in what’s become the Great Medicaid Debate, Brouhaha and Confusion No. 1 of the 2013 regular session of the Arkansas General Assembly.

I have always liked Hot Springs and Garland County. I grew up in a small neighboring county, and Hot Springs offered a powerful respite from life in the slow lane. I can recall vividly being at a high school banquet at a Hot Springs hotel in 1965 and stumbling onto a casino as I was searching for a men’s room.

The cardinals in Rome should choose an Asian, African or Latin American to succeed Pope Benedict XVI. If the cardinals vote based on where they come from, then it is unlikely we would see a pope who is not from Europe, where every pope in modern history was born.

Yes, I’ve been rather hard on my old friend the governor the last couple of weeks. Mike Beebe’s passive, philosophy-devoid style of governing in the face of a troglodytic overthrow of reason—not to mention his throwing in on a grocery-tax alliance with the chief troglodyte. . . well, people have told me that it was disrespectfully derisive of me the other day to call him “Mikey.”

Movies, TV shows, books such as Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” and countless letters to the editor promote the myth that believers in a personal God (monotheists) are irrational whereas atheists are rational. A second popular and pernicious myth holds monotheists have perpetrated history’s worst atrocities.

Collateral damage has become part of our everyday vocabulary, and we accept it as an unfortunate part of our actions, particularly in war. When it strikes home, as in the recent series of mass shootings, we are in disbelief and ask, “What’s going on? How could this happen? Who or what is to blame?” We are all to blame for not understanding what the policymakers in Washington are doing or not doing.

What difference does it make?” is a common refrain expressed by some, who consider it hopeless to confront the tide of global environmental degradation that now seems close to insurmountable. However, others become activists in contrast to their fellow residents, who have assumed fetal positions of surrender. Passionate people will fight on for different reasons, and like any other defenders of the common good, we should respect what they do for us all.

Not to minimize homelessness, but the definition has changed over time. Today, “homeless” doesn’t mean without shelter. An adult child who has returned home to live with his parent(s) is, I believe, considered homeless. Relatives who live together under one roof are homeless, though they don’t consider themselves so. The government tells them. Are youth in foster homes homeless? How about kids living with grandma?

Alison Raymer, chief executive officer and co-owner of Emerson Monument Co. in Springdale, was elected vice president of the Monument Builders of North America for the 2013-15 term. With a membership of 733, it is the largest international association of individuals and firms in the memorial industry.

Crafty Cottage ready to move Bentonville business Crafty Cottage will celebrate its fourth birthday during a party celebrating a new location. The business is staying in Bentonville but is moving from 225 S. Main St. to the Copper Ridge Center at 2800 S.W. 14th St., Suites 6-8.

DEAR ABBY: I have been in love with “Richard” for 14 years. We broke up after we dated for a while because my alcoholic mother kept interfering. She kept telling me how “bad” he was for me — and I, thinking my mother had my best interests at heart, believed her.

DEAR MR. WOLFF: Are you familiar with a convention called “stolen bid” ? What are the pluses and minuses of the convention, in which a double and all low-level calls act as transfers ? — Gunsmith, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Society announcements are published in the Sunday edition of the Profiles section. Please visit nwabridalcommunity.com and click on Publish Your Announcement for pricing and to submit engagement and wedding announcements. Anniversaries remain free of charge. Forms are available at nwaonline.com and at the Rogers Morning News, the Springdale Morning News, the Benton County Daily Record and the Northwest Arkansas Times offices. Information provided will be used to write an announcement according to the style and guidelines of the paper.

SELF PORTRAIT Date and place of birth: Feb. 23, 1951, in Dallas. Occupation: Artist and conservator Age brings the true beauty that comes from experience, wisdom — people can be like wine. A good conservator needs patience. The coolest thing Norton Arts has conserved was Robert E. Lee’s dispatch bag that went to Appomattox. My favorite part of a new project is you always learn new things from doing the research you have to do, like about the nuances of 19th-century bricks. I make my own art because it’s good for me. That sounds a little selfish, but if it’s good for me, it’s good for others that I do it. It’s a healthy thing to do. My dream job would be making fine art all the time. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories is in my kitchen because we’ve been reading it out loud for fun. I wish they would bring back Foghorn Leghorn. Guests fo my fantasy dinner party: Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Keith Richards, John Lennon. And my brothers and all the people I love. I would love to serve them gumbo and catf

Commanding lead Cliff Pace of Petal, Miss., separated himself from a crowd Saturday to take a commanding 7-pound lead after the second round of the Bassmaster Classic at Grand Lake O’ The Cherokees. Performing with a high level of consistency, Pace caught five bass weighing 21 pounds, 12 ounces for a combined two-day total weight of 43-4. He caught five bass weighing 21-8 during Friday’s first round. An afterthought after the third round, Brandon Palaniuk of Rathbun, Idaho, roared from 11th place to second place by catching five bass weighing 19-10 for a two-day total of 36-4. 6C No problem As many as five Bentonville wrestlers missed time for various reasons this season, leaving Coach Bill Desler wondering how strong his team would be for the state tournament. Based on the results this weekend, the Tigers were just fine, scoring 254 points to easily outdistance Little Rock Catholic and Rogers for the state championship. 10C Saturday’s results COLLEGE BASKETBALL TOP 25 MEN Wake Forest 80, (2) Miami 65 (3) Gon

A high-speed pursuit of a stolen vehicle led to a two-vehicle crash Friday morning that left at least three people hurt, another under arrest and a block-long path of vehicle debris that shut down a busy central Little Rock street for part of the day.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Eureka Springs is probably the only town of 2,000 people in the world that has three shops that sell meteorites.” Robert Beauford, whose shop, Muse, is one of the three Article, 1B Today’s happenings Sinking stream hike, 11 a.m., Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, near Rogers.

Maker of films on life in Soviet era Alexei German, a Russian director known for grim, hypnotic films that captured the darkness of the Soviet era and especially Stalin’s rule, died Thursday in St. Petersburg. He was 74.

10-day timetable estimated for trial The parties in the 30-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit anticipate that a federal court trial on the state’s request to be released from the 1989 desegregation-settlement agreement will take 10 days.

JBU’s Pollard new council chairman John Brown University P resident Chip Pollard was elected chairman of the board of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

The nation’s governors, who gathered in Washington this weekend for their annual winter meeting, warned that automatic spending cuts scheduled to go into effect March 1 would lead to severe job losses in their states, putting the nation’s fragile economic recovery in jeopardy.

A tenured music professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville filed a lawsuit Friday against the University of Arkansas System’s president and the University of Arkansas board of trustees, claiming policy wasn’t followed in his dismissal.

The battle for Syria’s second-largest airport intensified Saturday as government troops tried to reverse recent strategic gains the rebels have made in the northeast in their quest to topple President Bashar Assad.

The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI’s successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election.

With a major civil trial set to start Monday in New Orleans against BP over damages related to the explosion of an offshore drilling rig in 2010, federal officials and those from the five affected Gulf Coast states are trying to pull together to strike an eleventh-hour settlement in the case.

They elected a Harvard-educated Rhodes Scholar and ended up with a congressman who was convicted of having sex with an underage campaign worker. They voted for the son of a famous civil-rights leader and got someone who illegally spent campaign funds on everything from furniture to Bruce Lee memorabilia.

After weeks of sometimes wrenching debate over gun safety, Congress will begin to consider legislation this week that is likely to include expanded background checks for gun buyers and increased penalties for those who purchase guns for criminals.

The man in charge of Britain’s economy said he won’t change direction despite a rating agency’s decision to downgrade the nation’s credit rating, and he spurned renewed calls from the opposition for more stimulus for a flat-lining economy.

With automatic federal budget cuts almost certain to take effect in one week, the White House and top Democrats on Friday sought to increase the pressure on congressional Republicans to agree to a compromise that could prevent disruptions in government services after March 1.

Decatur whittled a 15-point lead for Conway Christian to six with 2 minutes, 1 second remaining, but didn’t score again and saw its season come to an end with a 59-49 loss in the opening round of the Class 2A West Regional Tournament on Friday.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his NATO counterparts are considering leaving 8,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but a dispute arose Friday between the U.S. and German defense officials over whether that contingent would be an international force or an American one.

The Maserati driver who died after being peppered with gunfire from someone in a Range Rover sport utility vehicle, sparking a fiery crash that killed two others, was identified Friday as an aspiring rapper originally from Northern California.

Gunmen from rival Sunni and Shiite Muslim villages in northern Syria have freed more than 200 people snatched in tit-for-tat kidnappings this month, easing tensions that threatened to touch off more sectarian violence, activists said Friday.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I am going to be 82 years old. I have the right to retire, don’t you think?” Cuban President Raul Castro, who is to be named to a new five-year term, in informal remarks during an appearance Article, this page

QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s not frustrating. I enjoy it. It’s the normal thing to do in the wintertime.” Eulas Henderson, a 56-year-old security guard, as he shoveled still-falling snow from the sidewalk outside his Detroit home Article, this page

Gregg Dietrich, sales specialist at Bonhams Maritime Art Department, said that an original 12 1/2-foot statue of the famous 1945 flag-raising at Iwo Jima, later replicated in the 32-foot sculpture of the World War II flag-raising that rests in Arlington, Va., failed to sell at a New York City auction, with the bids stalling at $950,000, below the undisclosed minimum sale price.

Gov. Mike Beebe emerged from a “productive” meeting with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday, saying he felt good about Arkansas’ options for expanding its $5 billion Medicaid program by 250,000 people.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux in Bella Vista, 1 Saint Bernard Lane, is collecting socks for its annual Lenten sock drive through March 29 for the Shoebox Ministry. Drop boxes are in the narthex and parish hall.

Chuck Swindoll, a writer and pastor of one of Texas’ largest churches, relates a story worth repeating. Swindoll was conducting a conference with hundreds in attendance. His attention was drawn to a couple in the audience. The wife was alert, attentive and seemed to reap the gems of the conference. The husband invariably slept during the lectures and apparently was the bored companion. He slept in both the morning and evening sessions. This went on for the entire week and Swindoll’s attitude was one of disgust.

A drinking-water source for about 420,000 people in Northwest Arkansas would become the first body of water in the state to have numeric limits on indicators of algae growth under a proposed update of the state’s water-quality standards.

A federal magistrate judge decided Friday to detain James Weldon King, a Phillips County constable who authorities say is a felon who hoarded fully automatic rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition at his home.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 23, 1913 A large new American flag floated over the city hall for the first time yesterday in commemoration of the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. The stars and stripes were raised by Merrill Taylor, the 9-year-old son of Mayor Chas. E. Taylor.

“They’re starving back in China, So finish what you’ve got.” —John Lennon, Nobody Told Me THE LAST time we were in a school lunchroom, the waste was super-sized. Perfectly good food was going straight into the garbage cans.

If there were an Oscar for political ineptitude, President Obama would be a frontrunner for the prize. The president’s possible approval of the 2,000-mile-long pipeline from the oil sands (previously known as tar sands, and more correctly as bitumen sands) of Alberta, Canada, to the refineries and shipping terminals of the U.S. Gulf Coast is a tale of political calculation that has gone sadly wrong.

Hugo Chavez’s stealth return to Venezuela this week, which was carried out with the same signature secrecy that surrounds all aspects of his health status, makes it clearer than ever that Venezuela is leaderless and in need of someone else to take over.

What will he be called? Will he keep his white robes and trademark red loafers? And in the last absolute monarchy in the West, how does the dramatic resignation of Benedict XVI, the first pope to step down willingly in six centuries, change a role long considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be that of God’s representative on Earth?

Customers were emptying the shelves at the Cokesbury bookstore in downtown Little Rock on Monday afternoon, the first day of a 75 percent off sale. They were also making connections. Two friends who hadn’t seen each other in months caught up. Two strangers discussed each other’s stacks of books, and ended up exchanging phone numbers.

Laundry women to receive aid DUBLIN — Ireland ignored the mistreatment of thousands of women who were incarcerated within Roman Catholic nun-operated laundries and must pay the survivors compensation, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Tuesday in an emotional state apology for the decades of abuses in the so-called Magdalene Laundries.

Arkansas’ Makeba Alcide tweaked a quad muscle on her final attempt on the high jump, the second event of the pentathlon, and had Mississippi State’s talented Erica Bougard breathing down her neck at the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday.

Jamie Ruffins hit a jumper from the top of the key at the buzzer to give Little Rock Central’s girls a 63-61 victory over North Little Rock in the 7A/6A-Central regular season finale Friday night at Tigers Fieldhouse.

Maumelle and Coach Ed Viera, after listening to talk that said the Hornets were a prohibitive favorite to win the Class 1A-5 A wrestling title, figured they needed to do something. So Viera ditched a portion of practice and had his team film a “Harlem Shake” video in the school’s practice room.

FOOTBALL Waymire takes over at Trumann Carlisle Coach Scott Waymire was named Trumann’s new coach Thursday night. Waymire was 71-18-1 in seven seasons at Class 2A Carlisle, highlighted by an appearance in the state championship game in 2011. Waymire replaces Greg White, who resigned following the 2012 season.

The euro area economy will shrink in back-to-back years for the first time, driving unemployment higher as governments, consumers and companies curb spending, the European Commission said Friday in its winter forecast.

Prices for the two biggest U.S. crops will fall this year on record corn and soybean production, easing food inflation while providing less cash for growers recovering from drought, the government said.

Drivers in the U.S. should expect to see a “modest further increase” in gasoline prices as refinery repairs cut supply and plants begin making more expensive summer-grade fuels, a government report shows.

Federal prosecutors are investigating Johnson & Johnson’s practices in marketing a line of hip replacements recalled in 2010 because many had to be replaced within a few years — part of a string of more than 30 product recalls by the health-care giant in the past 3 1/2 years.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I want to keep the company on a steady production pace and focus on efficiency.We need to level off and focus on running a real tight ship.” Elon Musk, Tesla Motors Inc. CEO, on production of Tesla electric cars Article, 1D

One Bank & Trust sues son of owner One Bank & Trust of Little Rock on Friday sued Hunter Stuart, a former vice president and the son of its owner, claiming Stuart used more than $1 million in misappropriated funds from the bank on his Pleasant Valley home.

Love the look of leather? Saddle up. Leather is charging into home decor, going beyond couches, chairs and table tops. It’s upholstering walls and covering floors, and manufactured materials made from recycled leather are broadening the design possibilities even further.

Kay Tatum Where I live: I live in a house built in 1899 in the MacArthur Park Historic District with my husband, John, and our four feline children: Tara Tatum, Tori Tatum, Tessie Tatum and General T. J. Churchill-Tatum.

Q I have a smallish garden spot (4 feet wide by 20 feet long) that receives mostly shade during the summer with about three hours of intense sunlight in the afternoon, say 1 to about 4 p.m. Will potato or onion plants be successful in this spot?

When designers Kevin McElroy and Matthew Wolpe unveiled their mod Chick-in-a-Box chicken coop at a 2010 Bay Area Maker Faire for inventors and independent designers, they thought they were onto something. Chickens had moved from the farm to the backyard, after all, and coops had become popular projects for architects and artisans alike.

DEAR TOM AND RAY: Yesterday I went out to put air in my tires, and I had the same problem I always do — I’m very afraid that the tire will explode while I’m filling it, probably ripping the skin off my face. I end up filling the tire only one or two PSI at a time while looking away, then rechecking the pressure, and so on. Can you give me any advice? Has a tire ever exploded on you? — Ashley

Happy birthday. If you’re clear about what you want, your winning style will attract the support and funding you need over the next four weeks. Self-promotion works well in March, but it’s your hard work and knack for assembling teams that will ultimately bring a project home in April.

These past few days I watched as hundreds of good folk paid cash for thousands of gizmos, presumably to sell on the Internet to other good folks who would pay for those gizmos one at a time by credit card. Credit card purchases are just one of many reasons 40 percent of the price of everything retail is interest, usury.

DEAR READERS: One of the jobs most people dread is making out and paying bills. It’s easy to put off, but don’t let your bills be late, because you will end up paying more in interest and late fees. Try the following hints to help keep things a bit more organized: When you get home from work, instead of just sitting down, why not take time to do a few small things, like paying bills or sorting paperwork ?

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: We attended a wedding recently, during which the preacher read something from the Bible about the need for charity. What does charity have to do with marriage? I guess I didn’t understand what point he was trying to make. — M.T.

The Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Friday upheld a $25,920 civil penalty for a food packaging company that installed a machine at a factory in Paragould without approval from the Department of Environmental Quality.

The Czech government signed deals with representatives of 16 religious groups on Friday to pay them billions of dollars in compensation for property the country’s former Communist regime seized from them.

Monastery hosts climate change talk FORT SMITH — The Just-Peace Film and Lecture Series continues at 7:30 p.m. March 4 at St. Scholastica Monastery, 1301 S. Albert Pike Ave. Climatologist Robert McAfee of the Climate Reality Project will discuss the impact of oil, gas and coal on the climate.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Joe ran unopposed this last time, and that’s very uncommon for someone who’s been in office as long as he has.That’s kind of why I decided I wanted to do this. People love him — his employees here tonight, people in the courthouse, they didn’t want to see a change.” Janet Powell, who will temporarily replace her husband, Joe Powell, as Franklin County judge so he can collect full retirement benefits Article, 1B

Eldest of The Staple Singers siblings In a family of vocalists, it was Cleotha Staples’ smooth and velvety voice that helped set apart the sound of the influential and best-selling gospel group The Staple Singers.

Courthouse gets Civil War marker The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission has approved the placement of a historical marker at the Pike County Courthouse in Murfreesboro, commission Chairman Tom Dupree said.

A Johnson County sheriff’s deputy was charged Friday with perjury, accused of lying under oath about making statements to circuit court jurors about the defendant in the murder trial they were hearing.

A former Fayetteville lawyer with two outstanding warrants and about $1 million in civil-court judgments against him was arrested Thursday night in Eureka Springs for purportedly driving while intoxicated.

Cuban President Raul Castro has unexpectedly raised the possibility of leaving his post, saying Friday that he is old and has a right to retire. But he did not say when he might do so or if such a move was imminent.

Moscow should “temper emotions” over the death of a Russian boy adopted by an American family, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said Friday after the U.S. ambassador urged Russian authorities and the media to stop their “sensational exploitations” of the case.

Russia dispatched a planeload of humanitarian aid to war-stricken Mali on Friday, a day after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned about the spread of terrorism in North Africa, which the Russian government has linked to Western intervention in Libya.

Egypt’s president set parliamentary elections to begin in April — a decision that an opposition leader denounced Friday as “a recipe for disaster” because of the ongoing political turmoil in the country.

A former priest for the Roman Catholic religious order the Legion of Christ said in sworn testimony that he witnessed financial improprieties at the order’s operation in Rome, including the founder’s use of large amounts of cash without any accounting, and said he believed the order’s founder and then-second-in-command gave gifts to people at the Vatican to curry favor with them.

President Barack Obama argued Friday for keeping a key provision of federal votingrights law in place, saying it will become more difficult to help people who believe their rights have been violated if the Supreme Court decides to strike down that part of the law.

Iran cited the latest report by U.N.’s nuclear watchdog as evidence that its atomic program is being used for peaceful purposes, state TV reported on Friday ahead of a new round of nuclear talks with the West.

Signaling solidarity, President Barack Obama and Japan’s new prime minister said Friday that North Korea’s recent nuclear provocations would not be tolerated and pledged to seek strong action against the isolated nation.

An investigation by the 4th Judicial Drug Task Force and a traffic stop by a Springdale officer netted two pounds of methamphetamine and three arrests in connection with federal drug charges, according to a news release from the task force.

Nearly 100 medical procedures, tests and therapies are overused and often unnecessary, a coalition of leading medical societies says in a new report aimed at improving health care and controlling runaway costs.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We are very concerned about the rapidly escalating cost of health care. This is not healthy for the country, and something has to be done.” Dr. Bruce Sigsbee, President of the American Academy of Neurology Article, 1A

Platinum-selling rapper Ja Rule left an upstate New York prison Thursday morning after serving most of his two year sentence for illegal gun possession and headed straight into federal custody in a tax case. U.S. marshals escorted the 36-year-old musician out of Mid-State Correctional Facility at 9:30 a.m.

President Barack Obama said in a radio interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton that next week’s dedication of a statue of civil-rights pioneer Rosa Parks will be a “powerful moment,” adding that the Parks statue will be the first full-length one of a black woman in the U.S. Capitol building.

This is a summary list of bills (by bill number, lead sponsor and title) introduced through Thursday in the 89th General Assembly, except for appropriation bills, which, along with other bills and resolutions, may be found at the legislative website: www.arkleg.state.ar.us

Working both in Arkansas and closer to his New Jersey studio, Shea Hembrey was clearly up to something. No one knew exactly what. But he’d pulled friends and family into photo shoots, used them to help set up potential works and completed enough material to raise curiosity.

The Artist’s Laboratory Theatre has built its “infamous sheet fort venue” to host a variety of diverse performing arts groups at the B-Unlimited Theatre, which ALT founder Erika Wilhite describes as “an intimate warehouse space” at 612. W. Center St. in Fayetteville.

1 into Lecture the The Queen the Surveyor — unique ’ Gain s Pictures chal insights of - lenges involved in curating the Royal Collection of Great Britain, which contains millions of artifacts from the personal collections of British royalty over the past 500 years, introduced by Crystal Bridges Public Programs Coordinator Sara Segerlin and featuring guest speakers Desmond Shawe-Taylor, curator of the Royal Collection, and longtime editor of “The Art Newspaper” Anna Somers Cocks. 6:30-7 :30 p.m. March 1 in the Great Hall at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. crystalbridges.org.

The character of Arnold Epstein might be the laughingstock of Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues.” Epstein, a Jew from New York, is physically weak and inept. He’s constantly the soldier caught in the gunsights of a belligerent sergeant. His fellow servicemen think he’s gay.

In the film version of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the character Stanley, an abusive, domineering, bull of a man, can ALMOST be forgiven. Or, at least, Justin Walker could see why characters such as Stanley’s wife, Stella, and her recently arrived sister, Blanche, might forgive him.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 22, 1913 House bill No. 231, by Newton of Lonoke, which throws restrictions around the expenditure of money for campaign expenses and provides penalties for corrupt practice in elections, passed the house yesterday.

SOMEWHERE in his concise, simple, and complete masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald describes personality as “an unbroken series of successful gestures. . .” We have come a long way since a writer could offer so clear and sharp a definition of the significant life.

A modern revolution never seems to end. Look at the French Revolution, which set the pattern. When those observing the 200th anniversary of that revolution gathered, they soon splintered into much the same factions that had emerged at the time of The Revolution itself: not just monarchists and republicans but ideologues from all points on the revolutionary spectrum.

September 17, 1796. . . . The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize.

Real life, fiction not same The most recent letter supporting capital punishment by Wayne D. “Mr. CSI: Arkadelphia” McGinnis is a prime example, I believe, of why we as a civil society should educate our children to understand the difference between the reality of everyday real life and the fictionality of TV shows/ movie drama, namely the plethora of crime-based TV that sensationalizes crime and punishment today, and from which McGinnis’ imagery and passion seem to be based.

Oklahoma City attempted to bolster its back court for the rest of this season Thursday by sending a 2014 second-round draft pick to New York for Ronnie Brewer (Fayetteville, Arkansas), who has been on playoff teams five of his first six years in the NBA.

The Washington County Quorum Court Thursday voted to create a Finance and Budget Committee of the Whole against County Judge Marilyn Edward's wishes.
The ordinance proposed by Justice of the Peace Eva Madison creates a committee consisting of all 15 justices of the peace to discuss the this year's financial issues and next year's budget.

The UALR women’s basketball team extended its winning streak to eight games Thursday night, but not until the Trojans survived a late flurry by Florida International and the leading scorer in women’s college basketball.

A poor offensive showing hampered the UALR men’s basketball team again Thursday night. Now the Trojans have to worry about staying in the top half of the Sun Belt Conference standings over the regular season’s final week.

Stacy Lewis shot a 9-under-par 63 in the first round Thursday to take a three stroke lead at the LPGA Thailand. The former Arkansas Razorback had an eagle on the par-4 third hole and added four more birdies on the front nine at the Siam Country Club Pattaya Old Course.

Arkansas’ bear and alligator hunting seasons went smoothly and the animals’ populations in the state are stable, Arkansas Game and Fish commissioners were told Thursday at their monthly meeting in Little Rock.

MEN ARKANSAS-MONTICELLO 51, ARKANSAS TECH 50 RUSSELLVILLE — Arkansas-Monticello held Arkansas Tech to 35.4 percent shooting and made nine threepointers in beating the Great American Conference’s first-place team Thursday at Tucker Coliseum.

BASKETBALL Crawford traded The Washington Wizards sent Jordan Crawford, who has led the team in scoring 17 times this season, to Boston Celtics for center Jason Collins and injured guard Leandro Barbosa at Thursday’s trade deadline.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We’ll get a pause here in the next couple of days, but [gasoline prices] will still be higher on St. Patrick’s Day than they are now.” Tom Kloza, Oil Price Information Service chief oil analyst Article, 1D

The 85th annual Academy Awards ceremony will be held Sunday night. As is our custom, we’ve assembled a panel of astute Oscar watchers (and one clueless movie critic) to guess what will win what. And while we encourage you to play along at home, we must remind you that gambling is prohibited and flash photography is dangerous to our performers.

The stretch between Christmas and the Oscars telecast is a bleary slog for my ilk. We professional moviegoers see most of the award-seeking stuff in the fall, so we can fill out ballots in December and write our end-of-the year features about what movies we liked (or didn’t ).

Snitch plays like two movies grafted into one. The first is a gritty, topical crime drama that makes no attempt to hide its agenda. The other is a pretty good excuse for gun play, vehicle chases and that old staple, explosions.

A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth film in the Bruce Willis action series, opened as the top movie over Washington’s Birthday weekend with $25 million in ticket sales for News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox.

Irecently returned from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan where I, with the support of many goodhearted people here in the U.S., was able to insert some five and a half tons of food to people who are in dire need due to the constant bombing of their villages and farms by the government of Sudan. It’s an area where an untold number of people are suffering malnutrition to severe malnutrition to outright starvation.

Should parents in Arkansas be able to choose what schools their children attend without restriction? If so, would that result in racial resegregation in parts of the state, with mostly white schools in one part of the county and schools with mostly minority students in another part? If so, what should the state do to discourage that from happening?

Arrests Fayetteville Ricky Capwell, 53, of 5911 Tackett Drive was arrested Thursday in connection with felony possession of a controlled substance, along with misdemeanor driving on a suspended/revoked license, no proof of ownership, no proof of insurance and fictitious vehicle license/registration. He was in the Washington County Detention Center on $4,220 bond Thursday.

At area theaters 91 AMOUR, PG-13 Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play octogenarian former music teachers whose abiding love is put to the test when she suffers a partially paralyzing stroke. With Isabelle Huppert, Michael Haneke; directed by Haneke. (127 minutes)

New this week Dark Skies PG-13 A young suburban couple (Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton) take matters into their own hands to figure out what the unimaginably terrifying and deadly force is that is after their family.

Happy birthday. The next three weeks bring recognition for your professional and creative efforts. In March, you’ll be victorious in a game or ongoing dispute. April offers a welcome change of scenery.

DEAR READERS: After running a hint about using a carabiner and then a follow-up on what one is, many of you wrote with favorite uses. Here are just a few hints you shared: Sally, via e-mail, wrote, “My husband and I each have one attached to a water bottle, to clip onto belts or my purse when hiking or shopping.”

Oklahoma could soon allow the slaughter of horses for human consumption, ending a ban that has been in place in the state for close to 50 years, under a pair of bills easily approved Wednesday in the Oklahoma Legislature.

The Arkansas Supreme Court released opinions Thursday. The court’s ruling and the names of the cases are reprinted here. The full opinions and other court proceedings, including per curiam decisions, orders and submissions, can be found on the Internet at courts. state.ar.us.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I’ve lived next to this river all my life.They make it look like we’re not looking out for our own streams.” Jason Henson, one of three co-owners of C&amp;H Farms, a hog-farming operation near a tributary of the Buffalo National River Article, 1B

Elizabeth Glassman, president and chief executive officer of the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago, was recently appointed to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art board of directors, museum officials announced Thursday.

Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman launched his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination Thursday, saying his priorities include cutting taxes, limiting the size of state government and allowing private schools to receive public funds.

Manila quake small, U.S. geologists say The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a small earthquake near Manila on Wednesday evening, but officials in the Mississippi County town said Thursday that there were no injuries or damage.

State doctors say a 25-year-old Louisiana woman accused of attempting to impersonate Arkansas’ most well-known missing person is fit for trial, according to a report presented Thursday in Pulaski County Circuit Court.

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Washington County tax collector improperly used part of a Fayetteville School District millage increase to retire redevelopment-district bonds.

Officials with the National Buffalo River are seeking assurances from the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality that a newly-permitted hog farm near the banks of a tributary will not endanger the quality of the nation’s oldest national river.

At least half the Afghan Taliban recently freed from Pakistani prisons have rejoined the insurgency, a Pakistani intelligence official says, throwing into question the value of such goodwill gestures, which the Afghan government requested to restart a flagging peace process.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A car bomb exploded Thursday near Syria’s ruling party headquarters in Damascus, killing at least 53 people and scattering mangled bodies among the blazing wreckage in one of the bloodiest days in the capital since the uprising began almost two years ago.

Vice President Joe Biden took the administration’s push for stricter gun laws to Connecticut on Thursday, delivering a forceful and often emotional appeal for stronger measures only miles from the elementary school where a gunman killed 26 people, including children.

Blinding snow, at times accompanied by thunder and lightning, bombarded much of the nation’s midsection Thursday, causing whiteout conditions, shutting down long stretches of interstate highways and forcing schools, businesses and even state legislatures to close.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “We are very concerned about the rapidly escalating cost of health care.This is not healthy for the country, and something has to be done.” Dr. Bruce Sigsbee, president of the American Academy of Neurology Article, 1A

The Las Vegas Strip became a scene of deadly violence early Thursday when someone in a black Range Rover opened fire on a Maserati, sending it crashing into a taxi that burst into flames, leaving three people dead and at least six injured.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Thursday reported an 8.6 percent increase in fiscal fourth-quarter profit but cautioned that shoppers are pressured by high gasoline prices and the recent payroll tax increase, which could cut into future sales.

Thursday, February 21

Tara Arnold scored 10 of her game-high 19 points in the third quarter Thursday and helped Gentry’s girls rally to a 54-42 upset over Dover during first-round action in the Class 4A North Region Tournament.

Oscar Escareno scored all of his 11 points in the first half, and Lincoln’s boys needed clutch free-throw shooting in the fourth quarter Thursday night to pull off a 54-49 upset over Subiaco Academy in the Class 4A North Region Tournament.

Due to a severe winter weather system that swept through parts of the state on Wednesday night, several regional high school basketball tournaments are being delayed or postponed by the Arkansas Activities Association.

Little Rock businessman Curtis Coleman has joined the race for the Arkansas Republican gubernatorial nomination, laying out an agenda that includes tax cuts and using public dollars to send students to private schools.

The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed Thursday that a property tax increase voters approved in a school millage election cannot be used by the city the city of Fayetteville for a down town redevelopment project.

Randall Body wanted to take his wife, Mikal, out to eat to celebrate her birthday. But as he considered where they would eat, he realized their home near J.O. Kelly Middle School in east Springdale is far from most sit-down restaurants.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress on Wednesday that if automatic government spending cuts kick in March 1 he likely will have to shorten the workweek for the “vast majority” of the Defense Department’s 800,000 civilian workers.

I am the 60-year old mother of two adopted children (our two older children), one birth child (our surprise) and grandmother of three. So, my husband and I are a part of the answer for unplanned and perhaps unwanted pregnancies. I also believe in mercy and compassion for persons who may have made decisions they now regret. God is merciful and loving and able to bring comfort and healing to those whose emotions may be hurting.

Emlyn Hughes, a Columbia University science professor, and his teaching methods are under review by the university after a lecture on quantum mechanics included Hughes stripping to his underwear and showing 9/11 video footage, as well as a participant destroying a stuffed animal with a sword.

Robin Roberts made her return to ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday, five months to the day after receiving a bone marrow transplant and a year since she started feeling symptoms of the ailment that has sidelined her since August.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Neither side can allow itself to rely on a military solution to the conflict, because it’s a road to nowhere, a road to mutual destruction of the people.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said the Kremlin and the Arab League are attempting to broker talks between Syria’s government and rebels to resolve the country’s civil war Article, 5A Benedict studies faster succession VATICAN CITY — A week ahead of his expected resignation, Pope Benedict XVI is considering changing the rules for the election of his successor, potentially letting the process start sooner, the Vatican said Wednesday.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 21, 1913 C.W. Clark of the Clark Pressed Brick Company of Little Rock, sent by parcel post this morning a brick of local manufacture to be used in building a brick house at the Coliseum at Chicago during the Clay Products Exposition. This brick will be one of 25,000 sent by parcel post from every brick plant in the United States to be used in the construction of this house, which will be given away and re-erected after the exposition. A record will be kept of each brick from the time it is mailed until it is delivered in Chicago in order to see how speedily Uncle Sam can deliver a brick house by mail.

The debate we’d like to hear—a debate without all the hollering, hyperbole and hysteria—is one about the size of magazines for guns. Who needs 30-round clips anyway? If you need that many shots to take down a deer, you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a gun. We don’t get the feeling that when the designer of the 30-round clip put the thing together, he thought, “Wow, this would be great in a squirrel rifle, too.” Those super-sized magazines were made to shoot rounds at a target, fast, without having to stop and reload. Unfortunately, as we learn again and again, sometimes the targets move and scream and beg for mercy.

Frustrated by the persistence of large deficits, and alarmed by the long-term gap between spending and revenue, congressional Republicans are promoting a constitutional amendment to require balanced budgets.

The road back from the recession has been a long and painful one for small businesses. One of the chief reasons it has been so difficult has been the staggering amount of taxes small businesses are now paying.

It may be that we should let sequestration happen March 1 and look for a sunrise on March 2. There, I wrote it. I actually said it out loud two days ago to a serious and indeed rarefied lunch group, one prominent and bipartisan and learned.

Poor Lowell.
I mean, what can you say about their woes but just that? Poor Lowell.
Here they are squeezed between Rogers and Springdale, trying to make something of themselves and what happens? The city attorney absconds. Or so city fathers thought.

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“And the beat goes on, and the beat goes on and on and on.”
— Sonny and Cher

HOCKEY Sabres fire coach The Buffalo Sabres have fired Coach Lindy Ruff as a result of the team’s inconsistent start to the season. The announcement was made on the team’s Twitter account and confirmed by Sabres spokesman Michael Gilbert on Wednesday. Ruff, who had been the Sabres’ coach since the 1997-1998 season, was relieved of his duties shortly after the team held a 90-minute practice, and a day after the Sabres were booed several times by their home fans during a 2-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. The Sabres (6-10-1 ) have gone 4-10-1 since winning their first two games. With a 571-432-162 record, Ruff was the team’s winningest coach.

Arkansans would be required to provide photo identification to vote under legislation that cleared the state Senate on Wednesday. Supporters and foes disagreed on whether the measure would increase or decrease voter turnout.

Utility crews anticipated falling power lines, highway crews treated roadways, and shoppers rushed to grocery and convenience stores in preparation for a winter storm expected to ice over the northern third of the state Wednesday and early today.

Profit plays Arkansas Democrat-Gazette handicapper Rick Lee has been given a fictional $1,000 bankroll to work with during the 2013 Oaklawn meeting. He can make as many plays as he wants daily. Today, I will bet two $10 exact as in the sixth, placing Boston Proper over Hilarium and Slamming G, and play two $15 exact as in the seventh, putting Denali Silver over Ricky Tick and Conservative Value. I’ll finish the day with $10 to win on Good Time Coming and two $10 exact as over Jokin N Smokin and Smoking Fun. MONDAY’S BET $60 MONDAY’S LOSS $60 TODAY’S BET $80 BANKROLL $685

HOT SPOTS LAKE CONWAY Bream are biting well on redworms and Lake crickets along the shore in 4 feet of water. Crappie Ashbaugh are biting excellently on minnows and crappie jigs fished along the channels of the creeks in 4-6 feet of Lake water. Bass are biting well on soft-plastic worms and Charles buzzbaits fished along the rocks when the Black River St. Francis afternoon sun warms the water. Catfishing is River good on minnows hung from yo-yos in 3-4 feet of water. LAKE DARDANELLE Alabama rigs, jerk baits NORTHEAST &amp; black and blue jigs are catching bass upriver. EAST-CENTRAL A lot of crappie are being caught upriver on minnows and bubble gum jigs. White bass were being caught on small Rat-L-Traps. Catfish are being Horseshoe taken on cut shed.

The doctor whose research is the basis of a bill banning abortion at 20 weeks said Wednesday that he disapproves of his work being used to restrict abortion in Arkansas. The state House of Representatives is scheduled to consider the bill today.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “The housing market recovery is continuing and will be an important contributor to economic growth. Permits look very solid, and that is a great sign.” Gus Faucher, a PNC Financial Services Group Inc. senior economist Article, 1D Bank of America CEO gets ’12 raise NEW YORK — Bank of America raised Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan’s 2012 compensation by more than 70 percent to about $12 million and agreed to increase his base salary for this year.

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: Over 50 years ago, I stole some money from my employer, and now that I’m a Christian I want to make it right. But the man I worked for is dead and the company no longer exists, so I can’t pay them back. What should I do, if anything?

Arrests
Fayetteville
• Steven Bercher, 18, of 1069 Madison 7500 in Huntsville was arrested Wednesday in connection with felony possession of possession of a controlled substance, along with misdemeanor operating unsafe vehicle, no proof of insurance, no proof of ownership and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was in the Washington County Detention Center on $1,115 bond Wednesday.

Happy birthday. This year brings a breakthrough. When you get stuck, you won’t agonize like before. You’ll just take the next small step and break free. Better earnings start immediately. In April, you’ll compete for a new position. May shows you how others live, and you’ll share and make a difference.

DEAR CAROLYN: My husband’s mother died 10 years ago, before we got married. They were very close; his father was always a little disengaged, unsure of how to relate to children. After she died, my husband spent years in a pretty dark place. With therapy and time, he has worked through the worst of it, but still struggles with his grief on occasion.

DEAR HELOISE: When taking ashes out of a wood-burning stove, open an umbrella and hold it as close to the opening as possible. It will keep most of the ashes from flying everywhere. Of course, make sure the ashes are cool before cleaning them out of the stove.

Super Quiz: The Apostles 1. The “Rock” 2. He betrayed Jesus. 3. The “Doubter” 4. The tax collector 5. The brother of Simon Peter 6. Another set of two brothers 7. Two apostles had this name. One was called “———— the Less.” 8. This name is found in The Beatles hit song titled ”Hey ———.” 9. The “Zealot”

Finishing strong has been a weakness for Arkansas’ men’s basketball teams in recent years.
The Razorbacks were a combined 11-32 in February and March during 2009-2012 to fall out of contention for postseason play.

The inaugural Bags for Books, hosted by Altrusa and United Way of Northwest Arkansas, aims to put books in the hands of as many area preschoolers as possible. Through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, children born in Benton, Washington, Madison and McDonald counties can receive one book a month from their first year of life through their fifth birthday. The program aims to boost school readiness by encouraging parents to read to their children regularly.

Sherrill named Next Step director Amy Sherrill is the new executive director of the Next Step Day Room, an agency serving the homeless in Fort Smith. Sherrill has been the group’s interim executive director since September.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “I’m disappointed. I felt they voted yes on what we wanted then they threw our dreams away.” Shelby Barton, a ninth-grader at Fort Smith’s Ramsey Junior High School, on the Sebastian County Quorum Court voting not to put more money into an aquatics center to restore features removed because of cost Article, 1B

Parents’ attitudes about having a police officer in their child’s school changed in rural Montgomery County after a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six adults in a rural Connecticut school, a school resource officer said Wednesday.

Arkansas and Oklahoma have agreed to a study that will measure water quality in the Illinois River watershed and set a binding recommendation for maximum phosphorus concentrations there, attorneys general from the two states announced Wednesday.

Office Depot and OfficeMax said Wednesday that they have agreed to combine in an allstock deal worth about $1.2 billion that would transform the office-supply retail sector, helping the No. 2 and No. 3 chains compete against industry leader Staples.

U.S. homebuilders began work at a slower pace in January than in December. But all of the drop occurred in the volatile area of apartment construction, which sank 24 percent. By contrast, the rate of single-family homebuilding rose 0.8 percent.

Hundreds of snowplows and salt spreaders took to the highways of the nation’s heartland Wednesday preparing for a winter storm that was forecast to dump up to a foot of snow in some areas and pelt others with dangerous freezing rain and sleet.

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., holding back tears, entered a guilty plea Wednesday in federal court to criminal charges that he engaged in a scheme to spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal items. He faces 46-57 months in prison under a plea deal with prosecutors.

Russia and the Arab League proposed Wednesday to broker talks between the Syrian opposition and President Bashar Assad’s regime to try to resolve the country’s civil war, while a government airstrike on a Damascus suburb killed at least 20 people.

Arkansas Tech University in Russellville named 1,691 students to the dean’s list during Fall 2012, requiring a 3.5 grade point average or higher with at least 12 semester hours. Of that total 565 achieved a 4.0 grade point average. Local students with a 4.0 average for the term are marked with an *asterisk.

Tim Hollis, the popular teacher and debate coach fired early Tuesday, has the option to appeal the School Board’s decision to Washington County Circuit Court, according to the state law covering teacher terminations.

Most parents want certain things for their kids — good health, love, happiness and a strong faith. But sometimes when I’m watching our three kids goofing around together, the thing I wish for most is that they’ll always be on each other’s team.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with a drug-sniffing German shepherd named Aldo in ruling that police do not have to extensively document a dog’s expertise to justify relying on the animal to search someone’s vehicle.

In other Supreme Court actions on Tuesday, justices: Agreed to hear an appeal from the Republican National Committee and Alabama voter Shaun McCutcheon regarding their challenge of federal limits on the total amount of money individuals can give to candidates, political parties and political committees every two years.

Mike Leara, a Missouri Republican and state lawmaker, has proposed a measure that would make it a felony, punishable by up to four years in prison, for introducing gun-control legislation, saying in a statement, “I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

Patricia Cornwell, author of the bestselling Kay Scarpetta mystery novels, won a judgment of $50.9 million against her former financial managers in federal court Tuesday in Boston. Cornwell accused her former money management firm Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP and its former principal, Evan Snapper, of negligence in the handling of her finances. Lawyers for the New York firm and Snapper said there was no money missing from Cornwell’s accounts.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “This was not a random robbery. It was well-prepared.These were professionals.” Anja Bijnens, spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors’ office, after thieves made off with millions of dollars worth of diamonds at Belgium’s main airport Article, 1A Tunisia credit rating cut; premier quits TUNIS, Tunisia — Tunisia’s prime minister announced his resignation Tuesday after a failed effort to form a technocratic government to see the country out of its political crisis.

A state senator who has favored ceding control of the state’s insurance exchange to the federal government said Tuesday that his committee will hold hearings next week to determine whether Arkansas should continue planning for a partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Thousands of people across Arkansas received text messages on their cell phones Monday evening, warning them to seek immediate shelter from a tornado in their area. There was only one actual tornado warning, though, and it was just in the southwest corner of the state.

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 20, 1913 The proposed constitutional amendment to permit the people of Arkansas to vote on the question of woman suffrage went down in defeat in the House yesterday afternoon. As the speaker announced the vote of 35 for the resolution and 55 against it, the suffragettes in the gallery, who have labored long and faithfully for the measure, quietly pinned on their hats and departed, leaving three small boys gazing down into the arena.

WAS ANYBODY really surprised at the news last week that the Arkansas Lottery may have to cut back on the scholarships it hands out? Or at least the amount it provides students. After all, way back in December, a legislative oversight committee—specifically, the one overseeing the Arkansas Lottery recommended cuts in those scholarships. It seems not enough money was coming in to cover the costs. Which was good news to some of us. Apparently the new has worn off this whole, legalized scam, and not as many people may be gambling their money away on the scant hope of striking a jackpot.

In addition to a great football game, this year’s Super Bowl audience witnessed a memorable paean to the hardworking American farmer: a Dodge commercial featuring the recorded gravelly tones of the late Paul Harvey. Farm-state politicians were quick to exploit it: Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters he hopes “the people of America will wake up and appreciate the family farmers of America.” Actually, farming no longer resembles the hardscrabble family enterprise of so much mawkish marketing.

Dear Fellow Fan, It was wholly a pleasure to get your video of Kate Smith singing God Bless America as only she could—and did. It rekindled childhood memories of listening to the Kate Smith radio show every schoolday morning at 9 in Miss Hinkle’s Fourth Grade class. It was the best part of the day, not counting baseball at recess. It included a wrap-up of the day’s news, and so fulfilled the Current Events requirement. But the show wasn’t over till the fat lady sang. And did she ever, especially God Bless America. Her version has no peers. Maybe because when she introduced it to the country in 1938, the country really needed it. You can still see her sing it and, more important, hear her sing it, on YouTube.

It came as no surprise when President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address last week to solicit support for his green-energy agenda, promising to go “all-in on clean energy” and use oil and gas revenue to “shift our cars and trucks off oil for good.” The feel-good rhetoric might be good politics. But it ignores the oil and gas industry’s very real contribution to the economy.

FOOTBALL Jets cut five The New York Jets cleared about $31 million in salary cap space by cutting veteran linebackers Bart Scott and Calvin Pace and three other players. Safety Eric Smith, backup offensive lineman Jason Smith, and tight end Josh Baker also were released Tuesday. The moves were expected because New York entered the off-season more than $20 million over the cap for the 2013 season. Scott has been slowed by injuries and had surgery in the offseason to repair torn ligaments in his right big toe. The 32-year-old linebacker had just 60 tackles last year and saw his streak of 119 consecutive games end because of the toe injury.

GOLF UCA finishes eighth in Louisiana Central Arkansas’ women’s team opened its spring season with an eighthplace finish at the LeTriomphe Collegiate Invitational on Tuesday at LeTriomphe Golf and Country Club in Broussard, La. UCA was led by senior Julia Roth, who finished fifth, shooting 78-76-77 for a 15-over 231. As a team, UCA shot 970. Lamar won the tournament with a 930 score, followed by Xavier (943) and McNeese State (950). ASU men finish 16th Arkansas State’s men finished 16th in the 16-team field with a 54-hole score of 68-over-par 926 on Tuesday at the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate at Magnolia Grove Crossings Golf Course in Mobile, Ala. The Red Wolves shot a 308 in the first round, a 311 in the second and a 307 in the third. Auburn won the team title with a 3-under 861. LSU finished second at 865 and Illinois was third at 870. Arkansas State’s Seth Garner was the Red Wolves’ top player with a 225, shooting 75 in each round. BASEBALL Hendrix falls to Ozarks University of the Ozarks scored two runs in

Oral Roberts used a flurry of three-pointers in the first half and solid rebounding throughout the game to defeat Central Arkansas 94-65 on Tuesday in a Southland Conference game at the Mabee Center in Tulsa.

America’s Car-Mart, the Bentonville-based buy-here, pay-here auto dealer, reported third-quarter net income Tuesday of $8 million for the period ending Jan. 31, up 9.5 percent from $7.3 million for the corresponding period a year ago.

Google’s stock price topped $800 for the first time Tuesday amid renewed confidence in the company’s ability to reap steadily higher profits from its dominance of Internet search and prominence in the increasingly important mobile-device market.

Confidence among U.S. home-builders slipped this month from the 6 1/2-year high it reached in January, with many builders reporting less traffic by prospective customers before the critical spring home-buying season.

QUOTE OF THE DAY “The index remains near its highest level since May of 2006, and we expect homebuilding to continue on a modest rising trajectory this year.” David Crowe, chief economist, National Association of Home Builders, on the builder sentiment index Article, 1D Polish leader: Time not right for euro Poland is striving to adopt the euro as soon as possible and will make the switch only when it’s “100 percent sure” it’s safe, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday.

Breakfast for dinner is one of our favorite meals. We’re also quite partial to breakfast for lunch, more commonly known as brunch. And while we’re no strangers to the bowl-of-cereal dinner, that’s not the kind of breakfast for dinner that we dream about.

I am an Iranian-American living in the state of Arkansas. I am very thankful for the United States who has given me and other Iranians the ability to share in the American dream. Meanwhile, our homeland of Iran, is occupied by a radical Islamic regime, that holds power in Tehran. I am a supporter of the resistance to that occupation.

Full Plate: Generous Servings of Ozark Hospitality from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville may be the best community cookbook I’ve ever seen. According to the foreword, the spiral-bound, hardcover book was a decade in the making, with each recipe being tested at least three times by someone other than the submitter. The recipes were also “fine-tuned ” during the testing process to “ensure that anyone, novice or expert, who attempts to prepare a recipe from this cookbook will have a successful dish.”

DEAR REV. GRAHAM: Every year about this time, our church board presents the new budget to the congregation, and our preacher takes several weeks to preach about money and tithing and all that. Frankly, I get tired of it. In my opinion, he ought to be dealing with spiritual things, not with money.

SUNDAY: Rosemary Orange Chicken (see recipe) makes family day special. Enjoy the nutty flavor of brown rice and tiny green peas. Add crusty rolls. For dessert, buy a blackberry cobbler. Plan ahead: Save enough chicken and cobbler for Monday. MONDAY: Use the leftover chicken and make nontraditional Grilled Chicken and Cheese Sandwiches. Chop the 4 leftover chicken breasts and mix with cup golden raisins, ¼ cup thinly sliced celery and cup mayonnaise. Coat one side of 12 whole-grain bread slices with cooking spray. Place 6 slices, coated side down, on a nonstick skillet or griddle. Top 6 of the slices with a thin slice of Monterey Jack cheese. Spread chicken on bread. Top with another thin slice of cheese and remaining 6 bread slices (coated side up). Cook on medium 3 to 4 minutes per side or until lightly browned. Serve with delicatessen carrot salad. Warm the leftover cobbler and top it with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Plan ahead: Save enough ice cream for Wednesday. TUESDAY: Kids welcome the tried-and-tru

Happy birthday. The next seven weeks will lighten your load and brighten your path. March brings romance. In April, you’ll trade your old image for a new one. Professional developments in April alter your viewpoint, and your goals will change as a result. July and December are best for adventuring. Get educated in August. Scorpio and Taurus people adore you.

I love librarians. My first job, at 15, was shelving books at the public library in my home town in the Chicago suburbs. I say that to inoculate myself because I’m about to say something negative about librarians, or specifically the American Library Association, which annually bestows the John Newbery Medal on the best children’s book of the year.

Marriage proposals have become an industry, with professional planners, flash mobs for hire and elaborate, homegrown surprises to make the moment memorable. And let’s not forget YouTube, and our steadfast resolve to share.

When reading your column about the dog who inhales food, our new “green feeder” immediately came to mind. Our youngest dog, Beau, age 3, does the same thing. Our son found the Green Interactive Feeder and got it for us. We have been using it since Christmas. It’s amazing how it has slowed Beau down and forced him to chew. What did take him one minute to inhale now takes about seven.

DEAR JEANNE AND LEONARD: My wife’s sister and her husband pride themselves on being “green” and, in particular, not owning a car. While they are able to take public transportation or ride their bikes most places, my wife’s parents live way out in the country, so my wife and I have to drive her sister and brother-in-law whenever there’s a family gathering out there (about once a month). We’ve been doing this for a couple of years, and not once have they offered to buy gas or reciprocate in any way.

The principal of a middle school recently confided in me that “this bullying thing has gotten completely out of hand.” He wasn’t referring to bullying itself, although that’s certainly out of hand. Instead, he referred to the fact that many parents have become overly sensitized to the possibility that their kids might, at any moment, become bullied and overreact, therefore, to any indication that they have been.

1. What city will host the 2016 Summer Olympics? 2. “Summertime” is the best-known song from what opera? 3. In what Asian city is the famous Summer Palace? 4. Who had a big hit with “Love to Love You Baby” ? 5. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs on or about June 21. 6. He is best known as the guitarist for rock band The Police. 7. What kind of event is Summer Slam? 8. Term for mild, warm weather similar to an Indian summer, occurring in November 9. Term for the summer of 1967, noted for its love-ins and the ourishing of the hippie movement

DEAR HELOISE: With regard to living lettuce (Heloise here: a previous column on the hydroponically grown lettuce that comes in a plastic container), I agree that it is so good. I took it one step further. Once I had used all the leaves, I told my husband that I was going to plant the roots outside with the rest of the lettuce I have grown.

Q: I’m a lesbian with a son from previous heterosexual marriage. My ex-partner and I raised my son together for seven years. We split up two years ago, but she is still in my son’s life and spends a few hours with him every other week.

Pepperidge Farm and Pace recently sent information on some new products that were available before the Super Bowl, but the information didn’t arrive in time to meet our deadlines. The products should all be in stores now.

Gov. Mike Beebe announced the following appointments to boards and commissions Tuesday: Douglas Avery, Texarkana, reappointed to the Criminal Justice Institute Advisory Board, for a term expiring Jan. 14, 2017.

Man guilty in case tied to 2 ‘spouses’ STOCKTON, Mo. — A jury has found a 44-yearold southwest Missouri man guilty of attempted rape in a case involving twin sisters who lived as his wives at a ranch inhabited by Mormon fundamentalists.

Sixty years after the formation of a large logjam on the Cache River near Grubbs, farmers who grow crops along the meandering river in northeast Arkansas are expecting to see relief from the annual flooding the blockage causes.

A Pulaski County Circuit judge on Tuesday ordered the owner of a defunct Fayetteville roofing company, already on probation for cheating customers, to pay $137,281 in fines and costs for accepting money for repairs his company never performed. Judge Jay Moody found Shawn Lawrence Redmond, 58, of Fayetteville and his Razorfast Roofing company committed 21 violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Act — one count for every defrauded customer — in response to a December 2012 lawsuit brought by the attorney general’s office. At the request of Assistant Attorney General Bart Calhoun, Moody imposed a $105,000 fine at $5,000 per violation, plus ordered $28,137 in restitution for seven of those customers.

Authorities have been asked whether former Hendrix College President J. Timothy Cloyd violated state law when he refused to turn over a gun that Conway police said an intoxicated Cloyd pointed toward an officer who was trying to arrest an intruder in Cloyd’s home.

Members of the Franklin County Quorum Court and other administrators said Tuesday that Franklin County Judge Joe Powell, who will resign March 1, has asked that his wife, Janet Powell, be appointed as his successor.

A gas explosion that sparked a block-engulfing fire in an upscale Kansas City shopping district injured 14 people, a city official said Tuesday evening, adding that it is believed an accident by a utility contractor caused the blast.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the longest serving leader of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, asked President Barack Obama on Tuesday morning to accept his retirement from the military because his wife is seriously ill, a move that nullifies his nomination to be the supreme allied commander in Europe.

Senior trustees of the University of Arkansas System board say that a multimillion-dollar deficit at the Fayetteville campus has been a concern but they have been satisfied with how leaders there handled it.

Police arrested five teenagers Tuesday in connection with using homemade explosives blow up mailboxes on North Hartford and North Eastwood drives, according to a news release from the Fayetteville Police Department.

NorthWest Arkansas Community College will hold an event to commemorate the victims of the March 1, 1954, thermonuclear detonation that contaminated Bikini Atoll and the surrounding area as part of the college’s spring themed semester on the Marshall Islands.

Rogers High must replace a three-year starter in goal, but Mounties boys soccer coach Stephen Peck has a seasoned senior class and plenty of experienced underclassmen as they look to make another run at the Class 7A State Tournament.

A United Nations commission Monday said fighters on both sides in Syria’s civil war have committed atrocities and should be brought to justice, and European foreign ministers extended an arms embargo on the country in hopes it would limit the ability of both sides to wage war.

Garrett O’Hanlon, 22, Dennis Codrington, 23, and Matt Foley, 23, jumped down onto New York City subway tracks to rescue a stranger who had hit his head and stumbled onto the tracks, with the three good Samaritans and the unconscious man making it back on the platform, with a help up from bystanders, just before the next train arrived.

This is a summary list of bills (by bill number, lead sponsor and title) introduced through Monday in the 89th General Assembly, except for appropriation bills, which, along with other bills and resolutions, may be found at the legislative website: www.arkleg.state.ar.us

100 YEARS AGO Feb. 19, 1913 PRESCOTT — While R. B. Arnold’s automobile was standing in front of his residence yesterday morning, the carburetor overflowed and a little gasoline spilled on the ground. A small boy passing by was consumed with a curiosity to know if the stuff was gasoline.

President Barack Obama laid out a number of good ideas in his State of the Union address. Unfortunately, almost all of them would require spending money—and given Republican control of the House of Representatives, it’s hard to imagine that happening.

Prove it is a problem State Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, and others who support a voter-ID bill to combat voter fraud should, at the very least, provide evidence that voter fraud is a problem in Arkansas. Otherwise, that emperor has no clothes.

Some 12 to 15 years ago, as Arkansas Travelers General Manager Bill Valentine was preparing for a midsummer Ray Winder Field doubleheader, a farmer (who happened to be one of Valentine’s acquaintances ) drove up with a truck loaded with watermelons.

A self professed “raving lunatic” while watching his team score just three points over the first 13:54 of the game, Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey wasn’t considering the potential consequences when he gave referee John Gaffney an earful.

Hamilton offers fans true feelings Los Angeles Angels outfielder Josh Hamilton said Sunday night in an interview with Dallas television station KTVT that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is not a true baseball town.

BASKETBALL Powell SEC player of the week Arkansas redshirt junior forward Marshawn Powell was named the SEC player of the week Monday after averaging 22.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.5 blocked shots in the Razorbacks’ victories over Auburn and Missouri.

The Capitol Cafe, tucked away in the basement of Arkansas’ Statehouse, is a quiet, unassuming dining nook. The low-key atmosphere could easily lead one to believe it’s just an everyday, ordinary cafeteria.

Soundtrack Bombshell Columbia B+ No, Bombshell isn’t a real Broadway musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. It’s the show-within-a-show on NBC’s musical series Smash, and they’ve put all the original Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman songs into this cast recording.

Arrests
Fayetteville
• Jacob Guest, 34, of 1327 S. Duncan Ave. was arrested Sunday in connection with felony breaking and entering and theft of property and a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication. Guest was being held Monday in the Washington County Detention Center on a $2,670 bond.

Elsewhere in entertainment and the arts: Tenor alumni recital Lyric tenor Josh Shaw, Ouachita Baptist University Class of 2001 and co-founder and artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Pacific Opera Project, will return to his alma mater to give a recital and a master class as part of the the National Association of Teachers of Singing conference and vocal competition for Arkansas Friday-Saturday at OBU in Arkadelphia.